Return of the Yellow Dragon
by AGrandMalfunction
Summary: Thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed cynic, Sukunami Hikari, is dragged into an ancient, bedraggled book and charged with the modest responsibility of saving the world. Special Appearance: Nyan Nyan.
1. 00 Prologue

**Return of the Yellow Dragon: A Fushigi Yuugi Fanfic**

**Prologue**

* * *

_"I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars."_

~ Og Mandino ~

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The book looked a little worse for the wear and was depressingly aware of this.

Since it's last excursion, thirteen whole years ago, it had faced difficult times in modern day Tokyo, where focus had shifted quite dramatically to television and video games. No one wanted to read an ancient looking book and frankly, it wouldn't have helped even if it HAD had funky colours and more contemporary language. The new generation, the book thought, rather like a grumpy old woman, was just so cavalier and shameless. There was no help for it.

Really, there comes a time in one's life when one wishes to be done with all of one's duties. Old leaves die and fall off, after all - though to do this with any meaningful conclusion, they must wait for new buds to be planted, reassuring existence and rebirth. There were things to be done yet, but the book, and its keeper, were old and somewhat cranky. Sometimes things lived, in an afterlife, but if they lost all meaning, they would only eventually be forgotten - and then they would truly die. Such was the way of life itself; and the book, powerful as it was, and full of wisdom, could do little about it if that was... truly... what was intended.

The cellotape muffled its inner voice. The writing was faded. The pages were even beginning to crack - and most alarmingly, the world within the book was slowing down. This was the last effort, and the book knew this. Summoning all its strength, it pushed itself off its space on the shelf, onto a lowly librarian's head. The librarian, irritated, picked it up and threw it at his colleague, whom he liked to bully about not doing her work on time. The colleague, in tears, clung to the battered old book as though she felt a strong sense of camraderie and protectiveness towards it. "THROW IT OUT, YOU STUPID COW," yelled the evil librarian.

But she kept it in her ugly brown handbag, crying through the rest of her day. She missed her bus and her a wiry little thief knocked her over and made away with her handbag, and the next morning, she was fired for irritating readers with her constant sniffling - a series of instances that led her to a psychotherapist she would later marry.

The evil librarian fell down the stairs of the national library and broke his neck.

The thief earned exactly nothing from the hangbag, though it was thoroughly searched. Deemed useless, it was subsequently dumped, quite unceremoniously outside a middle-school where sixteen years ago, a young woman had whacked her teacher on the head with a table, at the very beginning of her life's big adventure. The next morning, the handbag and the book would be discovered, and it would be the beginning of the last big adventure.

But for this night, the book was at peace, safe under the vigilant protection of the watching stars...

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**AUTHOR'S RAMBLING: **Hello all! Thank you for reading the prologue, and I hope you stick around for more!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia - particularly about Eikoden and a specific element (or two) from Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)

* * *

To the uninitiated (who are my friends and whom I have coerced and blackmailed into being here), let me explain a little.

For the others: **SPOILER ALERT! **

Fushigi Yuugi is originally a manga (Japanese comic book series) by Yuu Watase in about 18 volumes - which was turned into a TV series. There are 12 novels which have been published by a different author as supplements, and Yuu Watase is currently writing "Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden", which is a sort of prequel to the original (at least, it's set before it happened?). The story is basically about a place that is a lot like ancient China, called the Universe of the Four Gods. The link between the modern world and this world is the 'Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho', a book (title roughly translates to 'The Universe of the Four Gods'). This is a sort of hyper-mythological place with monsters, demons, gods and whatnot.

According to ancient Chinese beliefs, the sky is divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant has seven constellations, and corresponds with the four cardinal signs and one out of five classical Chinese elements (the fifth element should technically correspond with the center, then). Each of these realms is then ruled by a beast-god. In this book, these correspond with a land/country in the universe of the four gods. If you read on to the next couple of chapters, there is an explanation in the narrative.

Watase-sensei's manga revolves around a legend that each land has - which is that, when the land is in grave trouble, a maiden shall descend from the heavens, gather the seven celestial warriors, or Seishi, of her beast-god, and be granted three wishes with which she shall save the country. Fushigi Yuugi tells the story of the maidens of the Azure Dragon of the East, Seiryuu, and the Vermillion Bird of the South, Suzaku, who protect Kutou and Kounan respectively. These maidens were Yui and Miaka, who were best friends, and who were of course then pitched against one another in a battle.

You don't really need to know very much about the series to read this story, because this story is actually set sixteen years after the events in the manga and anime, and will follow the adventures of Miaka's daughter, Hikari (meaning "light", if you're interested). Hikari knows about as much about the universe of the four gods as the uninitiated reader, so hopefully it should made sense. I'm going to go through the chapters and add the translations/explanations for the random Japanese/Chinese words I use - but I know about as much Chinese or Japanese as I do Calculus. Which is close to nil.

I tried to add links for help here, but doesn't allow it. But if you're interested, search for "four symbols", "fushigi yuugi" and "fushigi yuugi characters" on Wikipedia. Those are succinct and useful articles.

That said, thanks for being here and reading! And the bright blue link that says "review this chapter" is a GOOD thing to click!


	2. 01 An Ugly Brown Handbag

**Chapter One**

**An Ugly Brown Handbag**

Taka was uncomfortable.

Sixteen years ago, he had been the one distracting Miaka from her studies, an almost religious effort on his part. For his own part, he had never had troubles, being very focused on what he wanted out of life, other than Miaka, of course. He had that now, piles of money, a beautiful wife, and a slightly recalcitrant daughter with a phobia of mathematics. Her grades were consistently good, much better than Miaka's or his, really, in everything except maths; he'd never felt competent enough to scold her over it, but her mother had said he had to, or it was the couch tonight, so here he was - driving her to school and feeling miserable about the expression of deep gloom and shame on her face.

"Hikari, it's not like we don't see you're very good at everything else," he said, trying to make up for his practiced fatherly speech from a moment back, which had led to her looking like a kitten that had been drowned, wrangled and then kicked around. And made him feel like scum worse than Tenkou.

"Hn," she said, quietly.

Ugh. Worse than Tenkou's ghost. "I mean, you've got better grades than most of your classmates, and ... and your parents from when we were your age!"

"Hn."

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. "It's just the maths, a failing grade isn't going to be good enough for high school-" As he turned around the corner, Hikari's middle school - Miaka's old school - appeared at the end of the street. Taka looked anxiously at the thirteen-year-old and sighed. He was _thirty-four_, now, damn it; he had beaten Nakago, and himself, and all kinds of scum in between, ran a successful business and was very good at making money, which had been a clear cut goal in his life always - both his lives, if you thought about it, as old as his allegiance to Miaka! His daughter was, while not a frustrating introvert, prone to the worst mood swings. It made him nervous, and was frustrating to admit, but he was at a loss as to what to do with a thirteen-year-old girl.

"Tell you what!" he declared, changing tactics entirely, realising time was short. "We'll go out for lunch today! All three of us- and maybe we can get Jun-chan to come with us if Yui agrees, what do you say?"

"Hm," said Hikari, finally looking at him. Then she paused, a flash of guilt passing through her expression.

The truth really was that she wanted to curl up and go back to sleep, having slept really badly the night before, plagued by terrible dreams about despicably styled handbags that kept coming to rather grizzly ends. Talking about maths wasn't remotely helpful at this stage; in fact, she could think of no stage in which talking about maths would be at all helpful. But her poor father looked guiltier than she felt, and this made her feel like a bit of a jerk. After all, it wasn't his fault that she was slowly losing her mind and had no aptitude for numbers.

"Don't worry dad, I'll deal with the maths." She undid her seatbelt, picked up her bag and sat patiently until they were at the gate. A flurry of schoolkids obscured the school from their vision. "And we'll go out after school. THAT sounds like fun." _I hate maths. I hate it I hate it I hate it! _"Okay? So don't worry."

Taka, looking visibly relieved, looked at her and smiled. "Okay," he said, reaching over to ruffle her hair up, extracting an alarmed sort of "_dad!_". A little red, she opened the door. "Don't forget your glasses!"

"Ugh," she said, glumly, taking the spectacle case from Taka's hand. She was short, skinny and permanently fuzzy windblown hair. The glasses along with her school uniform made this image a lot worse, in her mind, though Taka personally thought she was cute.

But then again, Taka would have thought she looked cute in a sackcloth.

"Have a great day, kiddo!" he said, giving her a reassuring pat.

"Yeah, right," she muttered, but only after she had closed the door; she even managed her smile for her father - he was a bit of a teddy bear, sometimes - as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Then she turned to face the school, with the same ominous sense she did every morning. No teenager (she took great pride in being one) would honestly say they liked school, but Hikari frankly hated it with a vengeful sort of passion. Miaka had tried to tell her once about all the happy memories she had from the school, the number of friends she had made. But her mother was, Hikari wanted to point out, very beautiful. Making friends would never have been an issue for her, as it was for Hikari. Plus, there was the element of acceptance in Miaka which Hikari lacked also. She wouldn't roll over and accept what her teachers said - Miaka had never felt the need to question them. Taka often commented that Hikari was very much her mother's daughter, but the truth was she was so different from her that sometimes she had to wonder whose daughter she really was.

She didn't hate school because she was bad at it, but because she felt her school was insane and the syllabus was stupid and there was frankly no relevance to the actual problems of life - like poverty and hunger. Hikari could be quite a political activist when she wanted to be. Really, just because Japan was to an extent exempt from these problems, the rest of the world wasn't. And there were other serious issues with blinding oneself to reality, which she could have spoken about for several minutes. And often she did, which was one of the main reasons why people couldn't be around her very long.

But it brought her down to the same level as her classmates, even if she had nothing else in common with them: she hated school. The thought of her first class - maths, of course - filled her with dread and she almost wanted to childishly call back her father and demand she be taken home and NEVER LEFT ALONE AT ALL.

Instead, she began to walk in, head lowered like a doomed captive.

Then, she saw a decrepit looking handbag beside the gate like a discarded fashion statement.

She stopped. "Okay," she said, to no one in particular. With some effort, she nodded, trying to accept the appearance of an unfortunate looking handbag that had haunted her dreams. Oddly, she was not repulsed. Quite to the contrary, she felt instantly connected with it, especially because it was, really, quite a stupid looking bag. It was brown, for one, of the most weather beaten leather she had ever seen, and designed along the lines of something from the 1800s. If someone had discarded it, then Hikari, who herself was something of a fashion disaster, could definitely see why - and maybe it was this had made her feel connected with it. It was bag she wanted quite instantly to protect, and to an extent, she wanted to cuddle it and take it home, and feed it some cold medicine. She stood there for a minute, considering it.

It could be a bomb, she thought realistically.

Then, unrealistically, the headlines flashed in her head: _JAPAN'S FIRST TERRORIST ATTACK IN MONTHS - WORST MIDDLE SCHOOL IN HISTORY DESTROYED BY SCHOOLGIRL'S INCULCATED STUPIDITY, STUDENTS CELEBRATE, GIRL MARTYRED AS 'RESCUER OF CREATIVITY FROM THE PITS OF HELL'..._

Really, the worst that could happen was that the school would be destroyed, and that, on the whole, would not be a bad thing at all. Of course, she would die with it, but she could deal with that later.

No one seemed to be bothered, as she picked the bag up. No one seemed to notice at all, at that. And, nothing happened - nothing exploded, no one died, and the school building and her maths class remained intact.

Holding the bag protectively against her chest, Hikari stalked in just as the bell rang and the gates closed behind her.

For the next two-and-a-half hours, the handbag stayed in Hikari's locker. For the handbag, this was alright - because it was old and didn't mind very much, but the book felt cranky and squashed and irritated at having been made to wait. As a result, it did what it normally did with Hikari, whose mind it had always found rather receptive to what could approximately be described as a cosmic poke.

As a result, Hikari got saddled with extra homework for her maths class because she was being distracted, made four stupid spelling mistakes in her English class, and earning more homework, and fell over in gym -- but this was normal and she had no one to blame for it but her own skinny legs.

Bruised and infuriated, Hikari returned to her locker at break, dragged the hangbag out and glared at it with deep misgivings. "Trouble," she said, to no one in particular. "I can just sense it."

The handbag, following handbag tradition, did not respond.

But her locker door began to sing: "Hi_ka_ri-_chaa_an!"

Hikari started, turning so quickly that she smacked her elbow into the adjacent locker. "Agh!"

"_Are _you talking to that doudy old bag, Hikari-chan?" Hanako's head popped up from around her locker door, making Hikari jump. "Because that's... a little odd!"

"I'm not talking to the handbag."

"Are you _sure_? You've seemed odd all day!" Hanako had a tendency to speak in excalamation points that Hikari, and most other people in the world, found a little baffling.

"I am not odd."

"Oka_aaa_aay," Hanako sang, making Hikari stating at her with a look that somehow combined appreciation and aggravation. Only a true friend would see nightmares that probably indicated an early stage of a psychotic meltdown as something new and interesting to talk about. Hanako was possibly the closest thing she had to a "best friend" -- even if she wasn't Hanako's best friend, given that Hanako was obsessed with pink and bubble gum and didn't enjoy books. They were different, but Hanako was persistent and very affectionate. Over the last two years, they had become closer - close enough for the pigtailed pink-obsessed girl to be the only one Hikari would speak to about her slightly odd dreams. You learned to value a person who didn't think you were completely insane when you told them you dreamt on a regular basis of being chased by a mirror and of handbags in deep trouble.

Like this one. Hikari looked down at it instinctively and almost stopped for the desire to open it.

"Are you _ignoring _me?" demanded Hanako, whose last few words Hikari had completely missed.

"Huh? Yes," she confessed, not sounding too apologetic about it. "Sorry, but this- I..." Clutching the handbag as though she was afraid it was going to run away and cause more trouble, Hikari bit her lip."Okay, this will sound weird, but I dreamt of this stupid handbag."

If Hanako thought this was weird, she did not say so. She looked at the sincere Hikari and the grubby handbag, and diagnosed the problem. "You really need to go shopping."

"Hanaaa.."

"Hikariii- it's true! You think wearing large sacks is good for you, but it isn't! It just makes you look a clothes hanger with no flesh!"

Hikari stared at her. "Hey!"

"It's true! You have a terrible taste in clothes!"

"That is _so _not the point!" But she was grinning, so maybe it was the point. She looked around and leaned closer to Hanako, to talk softly. "This bag was murdered in my dreams."

"Which is why you're holding it like it's your baby," Hanako followed.

"_Nooo_, that's because it kept bugging me during class, I really want to open it-"

"Bugging you during class?"

"In my head," said Hikari, seriously.

"Right," said Hanako, equally seriously, "go on."

"I found it outside school today - and it kept ... like... it's sort of like this," said Hikari, and poked Hanako solidly in the shoulder.

"OW!"

"I _know_! It's- _nononodon'thitme_!" Hiraki dodged, but wasn't quick enough to avoid the solid poke in her own shoulder. "OW!"

They both stood there, rubbing their respective shoulders and glaring at one another.

"You had it coming," muttered Hanako, looking dangerously on the verge of a pout.

"O. Kay. Any. Way." Hikari un-gritted her teeth, and cleared her throat. "There is ...just... there's something about it, it's-"

"Hideous."

"Yes, and also... it's..." Hikari stopped, looking annoyed. "I don't know!" she wailed, though she was sure that Hana understood by now. But to express her great frustration, she turned to bang her head repeatedly against the locker. "I'm-" _Bang_. "-going-" _Bang_. "-crazy!"

"I think you already were," said Hanako, and let her go on for a couple of minutes, still sore about her shoulder. Then, she grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the locker. "Come on, okay?"

"Where?" said Hikari, sounding deeply unenthusiastic.

But she trotted along, and this was actually a secret sign of her being cheered up. Hanako had a drug-like effect on most people - she was so full of excitement that she could tap into other people's excitement and amplify it, thus leading to one's brain bleeding due to saccharine exposure. Hikari was usually a bit of a jerk and not too enthusiastic to begin with - and thus they were a good fit.

Two minutes later, Hanako had dragged Hikari into an empty classroom and closed the door. "Go on," she said, looking at her expectantly. "Open it."

Feeling oddly like she was taking the red pill over the blue, Hikari did so. A plethora of objects came tumbling out. Hanako pounced on one before she could even make a move.

"SEE!?" she shouted, triumphantly waving an old lipstick around. "THIS IS A COSMIC SIGN THAT YOU ARE A GIRL AND NEED TO START LOOKING LIKE ONE- what's that old book?"

Hikari shook her head, shrugging as she examined it. "I- I don't know. It's... the "Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho". Well, that's maddeningly unhelpful," she muttered, looking at the book so intently that she'd almost forgotten Hanako was there at all. She could feel a distant memory tugging at her, something before the reaches of her consciousness, and she frowned, eyebrows knitting together. "I... this is... I've... do I know this?" She began to open it, but Hanako's hand on hers stopped her.

"Don't open it," said her friend, sounding uncharacteristically urgent.

"What?"

"Just... Maybe you should wait?"

"Wha- don't be stupid, Hanako, I _have_ to open it."

"But-"

But Hikari had already opened it.

Several things happened at the same time. Hanako screamed, an unearthly hyper-feminine sound that Hikari would have commented on if she hadn't been yelling herself. Something shoved at her at the same time as something pulled and she fell sharply against what looked like the sharpest edge of a table... and then just kept falling...and falling and falling, endlessly through space and, as she would later discover, time, but what was for the moment only what she had experienced in her dreams - and like her dreams, it was without fear, and without the reason or understanding that kept her sane. It was without the control, that drove her. It was freeing, and beautiful...

And at the end of it, it was a little painful, for she fell on her arse on something dark blue and squishy.

"_Aaaaaahhhh..._"

It took her a second to realise the sounds of groaning came not from her but from _under _her.

She screamed - not unlike Hanako - and jolted upright.

The dark blue, uneven surface -- patterned with a weird design -- moved slowly, and soon revealed a ... very weird face.

Hikari whimpered. "_Oh-my-god-what-is-that-that-is-scaaaarrryyyy!_"

"_Arrr_," said the face, crumpling into an expression commonly seen on the faces of small, woebegone puppies. "That hurt, no da! You're rude for a flying object, no da!!"

* * *

**Author's Ramblings: **It is time to make a few qualifications, just to clarify:

1. This story is set thirteen years after the Eikoden, though I'm still in two minds about the whole Mayo fiasco. I did not like that character particularly and I don't know if that story had any particular value other than to warn girls not to fantasize too much about Tamahome/Taka and becoming the Miko in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. Possibly, this fiasco did not happen at all, then, for this story. Since Watase-sensei did not write the Eikoden herself anyway, I feel less guilt about it. Sorry if this offends anyone.

2. only allows me to name two characters that this story is about, so I've picked out Chichiri, for the time being. But in the long run, this is supposed to be about... well, a lot of characters.

3. Yes, I know Hikari was a boy at the end of Sanbou Den, but I've elected to have a sort of selective amnesia about that. I hadn't read it when I started it, and I honestly thought Hikari would be a girl, because... I don't know. -

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	3. 02 The Amazing Flying Thirteen Year Old

**Chapter Two**

**The Amazing Flying Thirteen-Year-Old**

Chichiri was lost.

The last time this had happened was when he had returned with Tasuki from the strange, angular and treeless world that the Priestess of Suzaku had come from and they had landed on a mountain at the easternmost end of Kutou. And even _that_ had only _partly _been caused by geographical reasons. Walking _appealed _to him, in exactly the same way that it didn't appeal to Tasuki. He was a wandering monk, after all, that was what he _did_! He wandered, and even when he didn't know where he was, he was never really lost in the truest sense of the term.

Until now, because, apparently, he was having something like an Off Day - not the first in the last month, where everything had begun to seem a little topsy-turvy.

It had all started, he believed, with Tasuki's sister and her inability to cook. You couldn't be a wandering monk if you had food poisoning of the kind that even someone familiar with The Way could not handle. You didn't walk around with Great Understanding and Indigestion - these were not congruous states of being. Chichiri had learned this lesson rather late in his life, and he respected the elements for having taught him this.

But ever since then, he had felt as though something was Wrong. As the indigestion faded, Chichiri began to consider that this may have something to do with a force greater than Tasuki's sister's evil culinary powers - though he respect that element too, he was determined to avoid it for the rest of his existence in the universe of the Four Gods. The Something that was Wrong was more severe, with wider implications.

He had therefore decided to journey to Mt. Taikyoku and ask Taiitsukun about what was wrong. As the center of the universe, she would know, after all. This was a foolproof plan of action, which had suffered from an unforeseen obstacle. This left him feeling something he never did: a bit stupid.

As he contemplated this rather odd sensation, he was knocked down by a flying thirteen-year-old girl. "Aaaaaah," he said, in this context, perceiving some discomfort in his spinal area. He wasn't OLD really, he was just OLDER than before and not able to handle having thirteen-year-old girls land on him and call him scary as well as he may have at a time. Which brings us up to date.

He politely pointed out that it wasn't particularly nice to fall on someone and then call them scary. This made her stare at him in pure shock and gave him about a minute to straighten his spine, with a painful sort of snap, and make a few observations.

This girl looked rather young and was dressed in something that looked like Miaka's school uniform, but her skirt was shorter (Chichiri didn't understand why, not being familiar with the Chronological Shrinking of Skirts phenomenon) and a combination of brown and orange (orange belt, orange tie), rather than the more simple and stately brown Miaka had been stuck with. She was also more preoccupied with him than the fact that she had fallen out of the sky into what was obviously not her own world. This was sort of understandable because... falling out of the sky was probably not really easy to deal with if you weren't expecting it.

"Um," said Hikari, who had never really seen herself as a 'people person' to begin with and found meeting new people awkward even she hadn't met them by falling on them through ... a book? "Um. I'm not... a flying a object."

This did not make any impression on the... well, man, she supposed, was the best assessment of the creature. He certainly looked unlike any man she had ever seen, with long bangs, an awkward sort of fancy dress and his face was really weirdly lopsided. He continued to watch her observantly, and this was perplexing to her, because... well, mostly becausehis nose seem to be in the general area where his right eye should have been.

Perhaps she was scared of him, Chichiri thought, perplexed and sincere; this was a strange thought, really, because no one was ever terribly scared of him, even if they thought he was weird. She did seem particularly horrified at the sight of him. And she was, thought he didn't quite understand why until he reached to bat at his mask, as though sensing that something was wrong with it. Aha! His nose was in his eye! He tugged the mask by the nose and shifted it into a more symmetrical position.

This did not help matters.

"AAAH AAA YOU-"

"Don't yell, na no da!" he pleaded, looking so pained that she was compelled to yell more, simply to point out that there were some times in life when you HAD to yell, and when someone moved his facial features around, that was one of those times.

"YOU MOVED YOUR FACE!"

"But my eyes were sticking in my forehead, no da!" he explained, as though this was logical.

"YES, BUT-" Hikari stopped, because that was a reasonable argument, against which she couldn't quite furnish one of her own. Her lower lip wobbled alarmingly, and she made a last ditch effort. "Your face _moved_."

"Well... yes..." he admittedly, now sounding awkward.

Hikari covered her face with her hands, rubbing it viciously. "I'mgoingcrazy." There was just a little too much to digest here. She had fallen in through a book, she was pretty sure about that somehow, she had no idea where she was and a crazy puppy-cat-fox-type-man-thing had just out-logicised her, which really never happened. "I'mgoingtotallycrazy."

Chichiri, who had now knelt before her, patted her on the head, making her jump and yell - which made him jump and yell. Then, for a moment, they just stared at each other with greatly troubled expressions on their faces.

"Okay," said Hikari, several moments later. "Let's start again."

"Hai, no da!"

_Weird, weird man. _"Um. Right. What- what are you?"

"You're so rude, no da!" he said, aggrieved. "I'm a wandering monk, no da! I am a person, too, no da!" The puppy analogy returned to her mind and she had to admit, he looked MOSTLY harmless. He did have a staff that he now picked up, but he looked about as likely to use it as a weapon on her as he was to burst into song.

Hikari then had a terrible image of him bursting into song.

"What are you, no da?" he inquired, in kind, politely enough.

"Agh!" she said, rubbing her face again. "I'm a-"

But Chichiri raised a hand. "Shush," he said, tilting his head to the side as though listening very, very intently to something.

She felt a little awkward. "Shush?"

But he had heard something she obviously hadn't. Sensed it, morelike, and it was exactly the sort of thing one didn't expect to sense en route to Mt. Taikyoku (but not, evidently, he acknowledged, more than a little grumpy about being lost). Narrowing his weird eyes, he raised a finger to warn the young girl to stay silent. Then, before she had the chance to ask 'what!', he had grabbed her hand and yanked her under his cloak, and transported them to the top of a tree.

All the better to see you with, he thought, watching the troop of soldiers marching along the path where the girl and he had stood not a few seconds ago.

Soldiers. In Suzaku's name, he couldn't possibly be so off the mark that he had missed Taikyoku-zan completely, could he? But only the dead or the chosen could find that mountains, so what on earth were the soldiers doing there?

A small squeaking sound interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to find the girl clinging to the tree, evidently alarmed by the height. He shook his head, as though to tell her there was nothing to be afraid about, and patted her on the head again. It was something she seemed to inspire, really, all huge-eyed and terrified and somehow achingly familiar to the Seishi. He was a generally nice person and wanted to protect most other generally nice people, but he had felt that tug of innate protectiveness before. Towards his priestess, and his fellow warriors - perhaps especially towards Tasuki because Tasuki could be a bit of an idiot. So this girl... hmm.

As the head-patting was only making her look even more horrified, he just left his hand on her head for the time being, looking down at the passing troops. Bringing up the rear was a man on a horse, in armor that looked slightly familiar. He stopped in his tracks and must have uttered something, because a soldier broke off from the ranks, and dashed back to pick up something by the foot of his horse - a small narrow object that Chichiri could not really recognise.

Hikari did, and blinked. If she had felt confident enough to let go of the tree trunk, she would have patted her breast pocket to make sure - but she knew it anyway. It was her ball-point pen. Well, fine, she thought, trying to be rational and failing entirely. She didn't care about the stupid pen; he could have the damn thing.

But it sent ominous shivers down her spine anyway.

Which proved to be valid as the man suddenly looked up directly at the two of them, making her gasp. But the monk beside her acted quicker than she could have imagined, whipping his dark blue cloak-type-thing over her again. Hikari couldn't have spoken if she'd _wanted _to. For the second time in about a minute, she found herself whisked into the air, squeezed into a very small place and spat back out.

And they were gone, leaving behind nothing but a small gust of wind and an empty branch that the man on the horse looked at, not terribly impressed.

He then smirked (evilly, of course).

"Interesting," was all he said, and the troops moved on along.

...

* * *

**Author's Ramblings: **Sooo this was a shorter chapter than the one before. I don't really intend to stick to a word limit, but this was more because I'm in the middle of exams - I had a strong desire to not study, so... here's the chapter. Next one will be longer, hopefully.

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	4. 03 A Manly Conversation With Subtext

**Chapter Three **

**A Manly Conversation With Subtext**

* * *

_"A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from."_

~ Lin Yutang ~

* * *

The book lay open on the floor of the classroom. Hanako looked at it, aghast. She had seen Hikari disappear through it, she KNEW it had taken her friend - but, well, it was a bit weird. "Hikari?" she mumbled, a little stupidly, a whole minute after her friend had disappeared.

Then she smacked her forehead, making up her mind. "You!" she bellowed at the book, standing, so that she was much taller than the innocuous object. "YOU TOOK MY FRIEND! DON'T JUST LIE THERE LOOKING LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! I KNOW YOU'VE GOT HER AND YOU- YOU GIVE HER BACK NOW!" Fists balled, eyes wide, Hanako prepared to fight whatever demon was going to pop out of the book, gripping her friend tightly in its jaws. Why it was this image that haunted her right now, she did not know. She didn't even know why she thought yelling at the book was going to help, or why somehow now, having done so, she felt like she'd disrespected an elder.

The book, for its own part, did nothing.

Hanako slumped to the floor, terrified and at the end of her wits. What the hell had just happened? Where was her friend? What were they going to DO? The world suddenly felt too weird for a peppy high school student. She did the only thing she could think of doing, and burst into tears - large, noisy tears.

And missed completely the fact that characters had started to appear on the worn pages of the open book.

The book was trying to tell her that her friend was alright - not to mention, really, given that events were occuring in it, they had to be written. But it did hope that Hanako would look - not realising that Hanako wouldn't be able to read those characters particularly well anyway. It said: _'The young girl and the wandering monk, Chichiri, disappeared from the tree, where they had been spying on the unknown troops, and reappeared at the other side of the hill that should have been Mt. Taikyoku. Without a word, the monk turned and began to walk up the winding path. The young girl followed, shivering in the cold wind that blew on this side of the hill, and for an hour, they both just walked. But finally, the young girl decided to entreat the monk to answer her questions...'_

* * *

"Stooooooooop, I can't WALK anymore!" Hikari wailed, loudly and clearly, and in a manner that thirteen-year-olds often employ to make non-thirteen-year-olds pay attention. It was a foolproof plan, simply because thirteen-year-olds could be very loud and annoying when they wanted to be, and Hikari was not an exception. "I DON'T WANT TO WALK ANYMORE AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE I'M GOING AND WHERE I AM AND WHO YOU ARE AND WHY I'M FOLLOWING YOU SO WILL YOU PLEASE STOP AND EXPLAIN!"

Chichiri stopped, abruptly; Hikari bumped into him. Both scowled at the cliche and shook their heads. Exhausted, Hikari slumped against a rocky outcrop they were passing by.

"You yell a lot, no da," Chichiri observed, after a moment, with a small smile.

"You're really ridiculously calm," she observed, not sounding as though she thought very much of this. "I don't- I'm not usually the person yelling, damn it! I'm the calm one! But I'm- I'm in a..." A book. She was in a book. "I'm in a weird place and I don't know where I am and... who are you? What are you even doing? How did you manage to get us here? Who were those people? WHY DO YOU ADD A 'NO DA' TO THE END OF EVERY SENTENCE LIKE YOU'RE RETARDED!"

"Daaa," said Chichiri, now looking crestfallen. "I'm not retarded."

"I'll be the judge of that," snapped Hikari, at the end of her patience, not too bothered anymore that she was veritably screaming at an adult. "You, you're going to explain now." She sounded quite threatening, really, especially since she had nothing to threaten him with.

But he didn't seem bothered. "Alright, no da," he said, cheerfully and compliantly enough. "But we should keep walking, no da. I'll go slower - your legs are shorter than mine, no da." Hikari scowled. "There is a cave not very far from here, and we should get there so that you don't die of cold, no da. It will be night soon; and I will try to answer your questions too, no da - okay, no da?"

"Do I have a choice?" growled Hikari, grumpy at the prospect of walking. But she was a little cold and walking at least warmed her up a bit, and the prospect of a cave was nice.

"Yes, you can choose to sit here and I could be on my way."

Muttering something about how much she hated adults, Hikari trudged on along after him. He was silent for another minute or so, and all she could hear was the sound of the cold wind moving through the trees below them. She had no idea where they were, obviously, but it was quite beautiful, once you stopped being irritated with it. There was something quite familiar about the place, as though she had memories associated with it - which was ridiculous, but rather nice nonetheless. The lack of angles in the landscape, the fact that there were so many trees... that the air actually smelled thoroughly different - it was all quite nice.

"You fell in through the book, didn't you, no da?"

Hikari stopped in her tracks. "How do you _know _that?"

Chichiri, who knew quite a bit, didn't make a production of telling her this. "So you already know where you are," he said, skipping the 'no da' for a minute. She was already scared, and he didn't really want to scare her more. "You're in the book - inside the Universe of the Four Gods."

"And this... doesn't seem odd to you?"

"It's not the first time it's happened," he said, gently.

"Oh. Right. Then it makes sense." Sarcasm was her only weapon against the weird.

"You don't need to be so scared, no da," said Chichiri, turning to give her a cheerful look, which masked any worries he may have had about a fifth girl popping into the book. "I can take care of you, no da."

Hikari stared at him, so skeptical that he had to reconsider his conclusion about who she was. Far from the naive trust of the last priestess in the book, this girl seemed cautious. "Why would you do that?"

"Other than the fact that you landed on my head, meaning it is my task at the moment, it is the decent thing to do, na no da. Or are you so unfamiliar with nice things, no da?"

"Oh," she said, blinking. "No, that's... well, I don't-" She didn't trust him. She liked him, and she felt safe with him, but she had to admit that she did not trust him. Maybe it was unfair, but he was a strange man nonetheless, and he was leading her to a cave somewhere in a land she knew nothing about - trusting him would be implicitly stupid. Even so, his gaze made her feel oddly shamed, as though she had been called to court on something basic and fundamental, and been found wanting on a personal front.

"To answer your other questions," he went on, "I don't know who those soldiers were, but they should not be here, not in this part of the universe. I brought you here through the techniques I have been trained with. I am journeying to my mentor's house - but her house seems to be hidden to me at the moment." He looked more crestfallen now, which made Hikari want to pat HIM on the head. She didn't, of course, and he went on. "And I am Chichiri, no da, one of the Suzaku Shichi Seishi. And you... you are Miaka-chan's daughter, aren't you?"

He had the pleasure of watching her jaw drop. "How do you know _THAT_?"

"An educated guess... you know, I can't believe she didn't tell you." He paused, looked over the hills with an expression that was, for the first time, perectly legible to Hikari. Disappointment.

"Tell me what, exactly?" said Hikari, slightly more calm. Maybe it was the knowledge that this crazy fox-type-man-person-thing was actually capable of comprehensible emotions. "My mother didn't tell me- you mean she-"

Chichiri sighed. "There is so much to be explained," he said, sounding tired. He gave her a wry sort of smile before trudging on. "We need to get to the cave, no da! I'll explain there." She could hear the remorse in his voice as he spoke next, and followed him silently.

* * *

Okay. So. She could admit she'd been a little extreme.

Maybe she shouldn't have tried to attack her teacher when he'd reached for the book, but Hanako hadn't been able to help herself. Teachers were meddlesome. If Minami-sensei had taken that book, she would never have got it back, which meant she would never have seen Hikari again. Hitting him with the ugly brown hangdbag had simply been an impulse, really - and one she was shocked about, because Minami Seki was a very LARGE sort of person, known for his bullying tendencies and the fact that he towered over everyone. He was about twice her height, at that - or it certainly felt like that, because she was feeling very small right now. Even then! She hadn't meant it! So now on top of losing her friend to a stupid book, she was being dragged to the principal's office! Life was NOT fair.

Hanako sniffled, feeling very sorry for herself and even more worried about Hikari. She had not dared to open that book since she'd wrenched it away from Minami-sensei, and now clutched it tightly against her chest, petrified that someone would take it from her and that would be the end of that. Not that she really had any what to do with it. The book certainly hadn't dragged her in, so following Hikari didn't seem like an option (she had to admit she was glad about that - that was a scary thought and Hanako was a healthy being who avoided scary things).

So... what was she to do? The principal was going to throw a fit and toss her out of school, of course. She was incompetent and didn't know what to do about weird magical book things - and thus was a failure as a friend, which was altogether more alarming to her. And soon, Hikari's parents would come to pick her up from school and everything would go wrong. ,

"Oh, helllooo there, in trouble?"

Hanako blinked, and clutched the book tighter, even though the sight of Hikari's uncle was anything but threatening.

WAIT HE WAS HIKARI'S UNCLE AND A GROWN-UP. HE COULD HELP. IF SHE'D EVER NEEDED A GROWN UP, NOW WAS IT!

"Yuuki-sensei-" she began.

"Yuuki-san," cut in Minami-sensei, in a cold, severe sort of tone. This was not particularly surprising, because he was a cold and severe sort of a person in general. And Keisuke Yuuki was known for being one of the nicest coaches and people ever, the antithesis of Minami. They had really never got along, to no one's surprise. Now, Hanako held her breath as Minami's gaze threatened to burn a hole into Keisuke's face. "This girl had behaved abominably. I am taking her to the principal to be punished."

_(Subtext: Get the hell out of my way, you bloody pansy.)_

Keisuke laughed, cheerful and light, a sound that warmed Hanako's heart (and frankly made her want to behave even more abominably, throw herself at Keisuke and cling to him until he made Minami vanish). "I hardly believe that. You're Hikari's friend, aren't you? You're the one who keeps her out of trouble."

"That's true," said Hanako, emphatically, because it was! She was the level-headed one, even if normally she was bouncing off the walls in excitement for life, the universe and everything in it. She'd never broken a rule, whereas Hikari was prone to breaking several, because she would want to know WHY those rules where in place. Rules never had reasons. Rules were illogical things, but they were part of life and therefore they could be FUN. Hanako believed in being involved! She was the good guy!

"It is true," said Keisuke, smiling indulgently. "What did she do, now?"

_(Subtext: You're a jackass, Minami.)_

"She hit me with a handbag."

_(Subtext: HA! I WIN!)_

"She did not."

_(Subtext: Loser.)_

"Yes she did."

_(Subtext: Fool.)_

"You did not!" said Keisuke, addressing Hanako directly, now, ignoring Minami. Under his surprised gaze, Hanako felt substantially more ashamed.

"Isortofdid?"

"But why would you do that?"

Then, he cleared his throat before she could answer. He knew why anyone would do that.

"So you see, I'm taking her to the principal. Good day, Yuuki-san."

_(Subtext: #%$^ off.)_

Taking the wibbling Hanako by the arm, he pulled her along with him, looking altogether too gleeful. Keisuke shook his head. There was rumour floating in the school about how all the faculty were really youkai - and the sole reason for that, he felt, was Minami. Poor Hanako. He really did wish he could do something about it - but why had she been hitting a teacher to begin with? He turned to leave, but Hanako's yell stopped him.

"YUUKI-SENSEI! HIKARI'S IN TROUBLE!"

"What?" he turned, staring at the girl, who had yanked herself away from Minami and was running towards him. He was so stunned that he didn't realise she was clutching something very tightly against her chest.

She stopped before him. "Hikari's in trouble, I don't know what to do! I don't even know what happened, and I was trying to work out how to help her when he tried to-"

"SAKAMOTO!" bellowed Minami.

Hanako spoke even more urgently. "Please, you have to okay? I know I hit him. I know I shouldn't have but the POINT is that she's in trouble and I don't know what to dooooo!" She burst into tears again, leaving Keisuke aghast momentarily.

"LET'S GO!" bellowed Minami, grabbing her by the arm again.

"No, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND-" yelled Hanako, yanking her arm back.

He pulled at her arm, so roughly that now she did actually cry out in pain. "YOU LITTLE-"

"Minami!" Keisuke stepped in between the teacher and the student, taking a hold of Minami's wrist. "I think that's enough."

It was quite a sight. Hanako gawked, as Keisuke, about seven inches shorter than Minami, slowly, but certainly, twisted his wrist away from her arm. She rubbed it subconsciously, watching as the two men stared each other down.

Minami growled.

_(Subtext: I am larger than you, but not much cleverer.)_

Keisuke narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

_(Subtext: I'm going to have your head on a platter for breakfast if you touch this kid again, and there's enough fat in there to keep me fed for the next week.)_

"Yuuki-sensei," said Hanako, awed. He was usually such a nice guy! Who'd have thought under the squishy exterior lay the heart of a true warrior... Her romantic mind leapt at the opportunity. Yuuki... that was his name. People weren't named for nothing, of course - see, she was a happy, cheerful flower-type-kid and she took that very seriously. And Yuuki-sensei was brave and wonderful and kind. Really, he was exactly the kind of guy a flower-type-kid should grow up to be with. Thus starry eyed, she watched him as he faced Minami, defending her honour.

As Minami snarled and stomped off, defeated - because he knew, really, that Keisuke had a better relationship with the principal and word of him being rough with a young girl wouldn't win him any brownie points - Keisuke held his ground, looking at his retreating figure furiously. Until he turned around the corner.

Keisuke leaned against the locker and let out a very manly whimper. ", he'sliketwicemysize, ohthankgod..."

As Hanako's daydreams came to a swift and crashing conclusion, she remembered why she'd raced over to him in the first place. "Yuuki-sensei," she said, tentatively. "Hikari is..."

He had his face covered with his hands. "As long as she's not been sucked into a book, we can handle it, don't worry."

Hanako stared, aghast.

A few seconds later, realise hit Keisuke in the nose. "WHAT?"

* * *

"What's that?" demanded Hikari, stopping in her tracks, listening intently.

"Wha-"

"Shush," she told him, and then smiled slightly despite herself and the situation. It turned that 'just a little way off' was monk-language for three and a half hours of solid walking with no end in sight. Hikari was beyond words. She was a city girl, and not very active, especially considering her parents. Prone to hyperventilation, she didn't really like to run too much, and ran out of energy more regularly than seemed necessarily healthy for a kid of her age.

Mostly, though, she was just... differently built. She was a thinker, not a doer; a student, and not an athlete, even if she thought her school was a disappointment to mankind's grand evolution. But at least she thought as much, and had reasons that baffled most of her professors. Especially that jerk, Minami. For some reason, she had been thinking of him in particularly vicious terms in the last hour or so. (1) It gave her enough fuel to keep walking, at least, so she focused on her anger and just gritted her teeth against the cold and her exhaustion and the huge fear that had been growing in her heart as the sun sank lower and lower over the horizon. It was going to be night, and though she was by no means a homebug, she wanted to go home.

They seemed to be climbing higher and higher, but there was no way of telling, because the trees hadn't thinned out and the foliage kept the view of the hill slope from her. It was unsettling, because when they stopped and she turned to look at the path, she found that it too had been swallowed by the greenery, almost as though they were being made to follow this path and there was no way back. If, at first, she had found the monk's silence sort of refreshing, she now found it disturbing. They were lost, and she was sure he didn't know a way out. She called on some ancient form of courage and held back her tears, because, to her logical mind, they would not help, and kept walking, and walking, and climbing, and walking some more.

Until suddenly, she heard something. Something that sounded oddly like... well, like crying, really. After a moment of listening to this, she turned to look at the monk. "You can't hear it?"

"Not really," he admitted, looking surprised himself.

"You could hear those troops and you can't hear the crying?" (2**)

"The crying," repeated Hikari, blinking. "Argh, damn it! It's-" She stopped, because the crying stopped as well. "Okay, it's gone now."

Chichiri looked at her oddly. "Alright then, no da," he said, shaking his head and turning to walk.

He hadn't been kidding about being a wandering monk, Hikari thought, grumpily - he was certainly good at the wandering. "Are we lost?" she demanded, after a minute, finally giving in.

"No," he said, still walking, "but we're not where we should be, no da."

Hikari sighed. "Alright," she'd level with him, "where are we?"

"I'm not too sure, no da."

"How on earth is that NOT being los- there!" She stopped abruptly, and turned. "There, right there! I can hear it, follow me!"

And not bothering to stop to check if he did, she began to climb away from the path they had been taking, climbing directly against the slope of the hill. She could hear the crying, it was loud and clear and for some reason, she had to find its source. Biting down on her tongue against the breathlessness that was threatening to take a hold of her as she climbed, she pushed aside branches thorny shrubs, trying not to stumble. A lost cause, really, because of course, she did stumble, and fell right over, and would have rolled all the way down, if a hand hadn't grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and righted her.

"You've really got to learn to channelise your anger a little, no da," Chichiri informed her, shaking his head. "Are you alright?"

"No," she snapped, feeling inexplicably, unspeakably frustrated.

"Can you still hear the crying?"

Hikari reigned her frustration in, and listened, trying to concentrate. The crying, which had faded, returned to her perception, loud and clear. "To the left," she said, and followed Chichiri.

It took her a moment to realise that no more trees tried to knock her over, no more thorns tried to scratch her leg. With a pang of guilt and gratitude, she realised that he had been clearing the path for her before. Are you so unfamiliar with nice things? he'd asked her before. Was that true? He had been trying to help her, even if he was frustrating. And she had yelled at him - even though he was, well, older than her father and it was beyond rude and uncultured of her to be doing so.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly. "I didn't mean to be a pain."

Chichiri turned and gave her a serious nod, which made her feel a lot better than a smile and a pat on her head and a 'you don't have to be sorry' would have.

"My name is Hikari," she told him, because she hadn't before, and he hadn't asked.

And he nodded again, before they both walked on ahead, Hikari giving him the directions and him making the path. The crying - full blown sobbing, now - came closer until Hikari felt as though it was just around the large tree up ahead. As they turned, they both stopped, startled - because up ahewad was a cave.

"Is that the one we were looking for?" Hikari asked, but knew, without needing his embarrassed 'hai! no daaa...' to know. "The crying is coming from inside." She had the absurd notion that only she could hear the crying. It was weird that she could hear it at all, at that, given that the cave was a whole fifty feet beyond where they stood, and they had walked quite a distance to get here. No one's crying - except maybe Hanako's, who could be very loud when she wanted to - could have carried that far.

Hanako... Hikari wondered what she was doing, as they both made their way to the cave.

At the entrance, Chichiri stopped and handed her his staff. "Keep holding that, no da, and don't go anywhere!"

"Where on earth would I go?" she wanted to know, but he had disappeared into the cave. For a second there was silence, and then she head a loud exclamation.

"Chichiri! Are you okay!"

Silence followed this, and she stopped, fear keeping her grounded. She should go in. Hell, she told her legs to move and take her in, but she couldn't move at all. The bottom line, shameful and small, was that she was afraid.

But she didn't have to. About a second later, a very small girl came racing out of the cave and tackled her legs.

"HIKARI-NEECHAAAAAAANYANYAN!" she screamed, and burst into tears.

* * *

**FOOTNOTES (because grad students are nerds):**

(1) If you think that time in the book is moving slower than it should, canon-wise, you are not wrong. Stay tuned.

(2**) If this seems very like a certain part of Genbu Kaiden, you're not wrong - it is a bit like that, but there's a different reason for it, I promise (even if it's not a good one!). ... stay tuned? *hopeful look*

*SPOILER* - Argh. Okay, I just read parts of Shoryuu Den (the Chichiri novel) and realised that the crying happens there too! Oops! I had no idea. Anyway, it's a fanfic - I continue to own nothing and make no money out of it. Cheers! (added: 04/06/2010)

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	5. 04 That Which Endures

**Chapter Four **

**That Which Endures**

* * *

_It's like the stars that connect both our worlds are simply waiting until the day when all of the priestesses and celestial warriors from all of the worlds can once again come together in love._

~ Miaka, Fushigi Yuugi - Volume 18, p. 188 ~

* * *

It was a while before Chichiri rescued Hikari from the tiny, bawling girl. Until this time she clung to Hikari's legs as though they were her last remaining support, called her 'Hikari-neechan' constantly, and issued noises that sounded like 'nyannyannyannyan'. And she cried, in the way that only a child can cry, with total and almost enviable abandon - an altogether perplexing situation. Hikari stood stranded, perplexed and awkwardly patting the tiny person attached to her leg. "Calm down," she suggested, helpfully. This didn't work, probably because she wasn't feeling particularly calm herself.

Finally, Chichiri came out, and patted the little girl on the head. "There, there," was all he said. As if instinctively comforted, she turned to him, sniffling, and let him carry her back into the cave.

Feeling more than a little displaced and substantially useless, Hikari followed them in.

This place was just crazy.

Much to her surprise, she was greeted by the warmth of a fire crackling in the center. She glanced sideways at the monk, who was now busy wiping the little girl's tears away with his cloak. "Don't cry," he was saying, "it's alright - we'll find a way to get you home."

Because the gentleness of his voice and the words he used made her feel suddenly and painfully homesick, Hikari turned away, looking around the cave. Chichiri had done... something, she sensed, though she couldn't have really put a finger on what he had done, or how he could have done it - because there was nothing out of the ordinary about the cave. The rocks were just rocks and the earth beneath them was just earth, and yet, they seemed to be arranged in a manner that was expressly designed for people to sit on, or lie down and warm themselves by the fire. Huh.

"Very... domestic," she commented, looking at Chichiri, who tilted his head.

"You don't act like a thirteen-year-old, no da," he observed. "I mean by the standards here, you're practically of marriageable age now, no da! But it's different in your world."

"Um," said Hikari, trying to make sense of what he'd just said and find the appropriate response. Chichiri just watched her. He had reason to know that thirteen year olds did not act as she did. Her parentage didn't indicate any strong reasons for premature sensibility. Yet, here she was, all stoic and sensible, trying to be rational, when she was probably just afraid and confused, and unable to trust. Miaka, on the other hand, would have been crying and wailing and overly grateful - and have had more of a clue about what to do with bawling children.

"Why don't you sit?" he said, because Hikari was beginning to look very awkward.

She cast about as though she didn't want to sit, which she didn't. She wanted to go _home _to her nice bed, with her parents in the next bedroom and the neighbour's annoying dog trying to bark the place down all night, and just... just not be surrounded by this weird place. She wanted to not have to battle off her urge to freak out completely and cling to Chichiri in the same manner as the small girl - which of course she could not do. She was about three years too old to do that kind of thing, she determined. She also was sure this was a side-effect of her being awkwardly suspended between her childhood and her impending womanhood - which of course would never arrive properly, because she was the very image of a late-bloomer, and she would always be suspended in this space, dangling around with no real space to fit in.

Nonetheless, all of this would have been easier to handle if she knew she could go home eventually. But for the moment, this was not a possibility. Instead, she did as he suggested and sat down, watching the fire in the center. Where was the smoke going? she wondered, but already knew Chichiri had Done Something. There were more important things to ask.

"Is she going to be alright?" asked Hikari, looking at the little girl clinging to him. "Why is she- who is that?" How does she know my name!

"Yes, she'll be fine," Chichiri said, but it was clear to Hikari that this was more for the benefit of the little girl than it was an actual answer. Another reason she couldn't quite cling to comfortable looking monks, right? She was an adult by the standards here.

"Okay," she said, instead. "Okay, I think - I think you should maybe explain what is going on now."

* * *

Miaka had not worked for a very long time. After marrying Taka and having Hikari, it hadn't seemed particularly necessary, and she'd not quite had the time. (Not like Yui, who was a successful bank manager, a mother and a wife all at the same time - and still managed to have more energy at the end of the day than Miaka did. But Yui was good at being perfect. While it had taken Miaka months to lose the baby-fat, Yui had lost hers in about forty days and looked hotter than ever. Not that Miaka was jealous - a little envious, sure, but that wasn't unhealthy.)

It was only when Hikari had started to show the first symptoms of not really needing to be taken care of in the way that, for instance, Miaka herself had, that she'd decided to work. The only place that would give a woman who hadn't graduated high school, or worked, and wanted the afternoons off to go home and meet her kid, and would probably take a lot of holidays was... nothing, really - so she volunteered at a doggy day care center.

And in the afternoons, she would come home to cook lunch, because her inherent inability to cook never having interfered with her perseverence. This was what she intended on the afternoon of this fateful day, which was why she came home armed with broccoli and a wide, enthusiastic grin, and the hope that Taka wouldn't be very late. If there was something amiss in the world, then she was going to beat it with broccoli. Determined, she closed the door behind her as she came in and turned around. And stopped.

On her couch was an unlikely duo, watching her owlishly: Hanako, Hikari's friend from school, sitting behind, of all people, Keisuke. Both of them were wearing identical awkward, sheepish expressions.

"Okay," she said, with years of maternal experience backing her in remaining calm, "what did you break?"(1)

"Nothing," said Keisuke, in an odd sort of voice. "Nothing at all."

Miaka raised her eyebrows. "Uh huh?"

"... Hanako here has something she wants to tell you."

"_Me_? Yuuki-sensei, you said _you _would do the talking!"

"I never said anything like that, don't be silly, you have to tell her, you're the one who.. you're the.. you can be brave."

"B..but.."

"Now, Hana-chan, don't be shy."

"_SHY_!" yelled Hanako, outraged. "YOU WILL NEVER BE A ROMANTIC SUPERHERO!"

"I.. _what_?" Keisuke blinked.

"SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO!" hollered Miaka, weilding the broccoli dangerously. Hanako shrank, promptly shifting so she was half-shielded by Keisuke.

The thirty-seven-year-old let out a very manly squeak.

"What happened?" demanded Miaka, looking inexplicably severe and dangerousfor a short, just slightly plump and usually adorable woman. It didn't take much to piece it together. "What happened to Hikari?"

Keisuke stood up, swallowing down his fear of her broccoli currently being waved around. "I- maybe you could sit-"

"If you don't start talking, oniichan, I'm going to use this broccoli in a way you could never imagine."

"Okay, okay! Look. We don't need to panic yet," he said, though whether he was offering comfort to her or him or Hanako, it was hard to tell. "But- but, well, she found the book." He ignore the broccoli at it hit the ground, and grabbed Miaka's hand instead. "She's fine... She's with Chichiri and Taka went after her, except-"

"TAKA DID _WHAT_?"

"He went after her, but... but well..."

"But? But well? KEISUKE!"

Keisuke swallowed. "See, we went to him first and he decided that he was going to follow her into the book to find her and we should tell you and he- ngghhhh!" Keisuke found himself grabbed by the collar and shaken - which was demeaning, because if this woman, who was shorter by about one and a half heads and by professional description, a housewife who sometimes took care of dogs without being paid for it, even if she was his little sister. "Ack?" he protested, weakly.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I thought-"

"Well, you're STUPID. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. You should have called me, Keisuke, I am the priestess of Suzaku and not any less capable of protecting my daugther than Taka, or are you just a stupid, sexist, incorrigble, freaking- AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'BUT WELL'?"

"Well!" said Keisuke, not really improving his case. "Taka did go in but he didn't turn up where Hikari-"

"Miaka-san."

Both Keisuke and Miaka turned to gawk at Hanako, who was staring at them wide-eyed, clutching the book to her chest protectively. After a second, Miaka let go of Keisuke's collar, stepping towards Hanako and kneeling down to look at her. "You saw her go, didn't you, Hana?" she asked, with a kind of intuitive understanding. She must have been terrified, really. Miaka had never been on that side of the book, watching and reading, instead of playing it out - but Yui's accounts of that experience had not been positive. "It's alright. I- this will sound strange, but I've been in the book too, but people come out - so don't worry.." This wasn't fooling anyone.

Hanako shook her head, looking anxious. "I know, but..."

"You know?"

"Chichiri has been telling Hikari about you... here," she held out the book to Miaka. It had lost a great deal of colour and, well, appeal since the last time she'd seen it. The cellotape on its spine was particularly unattractive. Even so, the book vibrated just a little as it touched Miaka's hand, and flipped open easily to the page it wanted her to see.

With a sudden sense of inexplicable burden, Miaka stood in the wreckage of the broccoli, and read.

* * *

_'The wandering monk, Chichiri told the young girl all about the adventures enshrined in 'The Universe of the Four Gods'. Driven by the prophecy each story started out with, he explained, the 'Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho' was the bridge between the heaven and the earth, enjoining the four beast gods in heaven with the four corners of the world...'_

"Eh?" said Hikari. "The world is... a sphere."

"It's what?"

"It's a sphere. It's a globe. It's circular - circles do not have corners-"

Chichiri shook his head. "You're being too literal about this, no da."

"Right, of course, because 'four corners of the world' left so much space for imagination."

The monk continued: "The Universe of the Four Gods - that's the name of the book you fell into, na no da? In this ... story, if you want to believe that's what it is, the universe is divided into four main realms (though there are a number of smaller - and weird - realms in between, no da!), which represent the four cardinal directions. These are empires of Hokkan, in the north, protected by the beast-god Genbu., Sairou in the west, protected by Byakko, Kutou in the east, protected by Seiryuu, and Kounan, in the south, protected by Suzaku. When the universe was cast, the sky too was divided into four parts, each corresponding with a direction. And thus each beast-god has under him seven constellations - whose representations are seven men (or women, no da): seven celestial warriors

"The bridge between this world and yours and the heavens is the book, which contains a prophecy, that each of these realms believes in (or doesn't, but that's not really relevant). That when any of the four realms was facing certain destruction, a young girl - a maiden - would cast open the barriers between the worlds and bring peace to her country. It is the duty of these celestial warrior to protect the maiden, through a poer granted to them by their ruling deity.

"I, for instance, am Chichiri, a Suzaku Seishi." He rolled up his trouser leg as she watched him, to show her his mark. "See? I was destined to protect Miaka whenever she appeared-"

"Wait, WHAT. MIA- my _MOTHER_?"

"Shhhhhhhhhh!" said Chichiri, urgently, but the child who had subsided into sniffles while listening to his story collapsed into loud sobs again.

"Nono- nononono!" This had no real effect on the girl. "Don't cry! I'm sorry!" Hikari, suitably horrified, glanced at Chichiri desperately and was suitably chastised him shaking her head.

"_Daaa_," he said, troubled.

It was several long minutes before they could continue. By this time, the little girl seemed comforted but hid her face from the "kowai neechan!", which seemed only fair. Hikari didn't think she could help, never really having hung around with children. She sat back instead and watched as Chichiri did what she could only have imagined her mother doing almost effortlessly - and she was painfully reminded of how very far away from home she was.

How was she going to go back? No one had mentioned anything about going back, so far, and she had the intuition that there was something wrong here. That, or she was just with a crazy monk who didn't know the mountain from his backside. Which was a bit of a problem, she had perceived. He hadn't known where to go, and shouldn't he have? What the hell was she doing here anyway?

"I-"

Chichiri glanced up as she cut herself off. "You're wondering what you are doing here, na no da?" he asked, in a gentle sort of tone.

Hikari nodded, swallowing. She was thirsty, she realised, though forturnately she was too stressed to be truly hungry - yet. "What are you saying? Am I supposed to be one of these... these maidens from the prophecy?"

"No," said Chichiri, making her feel mildly put off. Here, too, she was a strange misfit, then. "The prophecies have all been fulfilled. Each maiden has already come and passed through the world. Your presence here is..." He trailed off, tilting his head to the side, as though considering this. But he considered for a whole minute, in which Hikari could only bite down on her tongue with impatience. "It's ... weird. It's just- why do you look so disheartened?" He stopped, blinking.

"I don't look disheartened," she said, opting for lat out denial in the face of obvious truths. "I look thirsty. Just go on." Hikari scowled and sulked.

Chichiri, determining it was probably more fruitful not to open the pandora's box of a thirteen-year-old girl's emotions, nodded. "Right, well, it's troubling, you see. It's ... very difficult to explain, and I know you're not too pleased with this situation, but listen." There was an odd firmness in his voice that made her look up, despite herself. "Each maiden, once she has summoned the beast-god and coupled with it-"

Hikari made a face. "...ew."

"It's spiritual, no da!"

"Ugh," said Hikari, conclusively, making a face. "Just go on."

"Hai, no da," said Chichiri, clearly embarrassed. "Once she has-" Hikari cringed. "Right, well, anyway, the beast-god then grants her three wishes, through which she protects the country. In Miaka's case, she used her last wish to be with Tamahome-kun-"

"My mom has a lover!"

"-who was reborn as Taka, in your world-"

"...mydadisa..."

"Anyway, there is always a holy object, an object owned by the Miko, which then enshrines the beast-god and the maiden's powers. These objects are called the Shinzaho. So there are four Shinzahos, three of which have always been in this world. Your coming here means that something here is really, really wrong, you see-"

"What? What do I have to do with this?"

"Well, you see... Suzaku is... he is the god of the guardian of the south, embodied by fire and the summer, and also... well, love. And the holy object is something that should be able to encompass and contain the essence of each beast-god's power. And nothing could embody 'love', which is transient, in that sense - nothing but a miracle, really. The Shinzaho of Suzaku is therefore the ... er, embodiment of love. Specifically, the love of the Suzako no Miko for one of her celestial warriors... and that would be you."

There was a silence, in which Hikari stared at Chichiri. "You're saying I'm the... this Shinzaho thing? How is that possible? I didn't even know about your world until ... a few hours ago!"

"Yes, that's ... that," Chichiri said, almost decisively, "is troubling in a different way."

"I'm not a miracle!" cried Hikari, ignoring the sorrow in his voice and proceeding to do the logical thing: she panicked.

"You are," said Chichiri, seriously. "All children are miracles."

Hikari looked at him and then at the child now sleeping quite peacefully in his lap. "Are you sure about that?"

He grinned. "You're really not like either of your parents, no da!" he declared, as though this was an interesting study. "And she is not a child, not really. She is one Taiitsukun's helpers, no da! One of the Nyan-nyan, no da."

"That is... thank you. I-"

Sensing a yell, Chichiri raised his hands, going "SHHHHHHH!"

Hikari smacked her forehead, and then, since that made her feel mildly better, did it again. "I don't understand what you mean!" she said, in a low, strained voice, through her teeth.

"I shall explain, no da!"

"Fatlotofgoodthatseemstodo," she muttered.

"What, no da?"

"Nothing, please - do explain."

"You are currenly on Mt. Taikyoku, or you should be because this is where it normally is-" Hikari began to look decidedly as though she was going to explode. "Taikyoku-zan Taiitsukun's home, no da, and where I was trained. The mountain only reveals itself to the dead or the chosen. Like the Nyan-nyan or me and-"

"Is she dead or chosen?" asked Hikari, sardonically.

Chichiri shook his head. "And you."

This was alarming. The lack of straight answers and the sheer weight of weirdness that had occured through the day made Hikari blinked, the blood draining from her face. "... am _I _dead or chosen- _OWOW_ I get it!" She rubbed her arm, glaring at the monk, whose laughter, although infuriating, convinced her that she wasn't dead, whatever else she might have been. "How did you DO that, sitting over there?"

"Taiitsukun is a good teacher, no da," said Chichiri, his mask beaming at her.

_Damn crazy fool monk man_! Hikari scowled and glared at the fire, turning away to glare at the mouth of the cave. Outside, all she could see were the stars, twinkling cheerfully as though nothing was amiss. It was a sight, she had to admit. The stars were never this bright in Tokyo, where the artificial light of the streets were too blinding to begin with.

She had a vague recollection of a trip to her grandfather's house (Taka's father, that is), which was in a relatively less urbanised space. She didn't remember much about that trip, specifically, but she did remember that they had gone on a nice long walk, her father carrying her on his shoulders for the most of the part. One of the worst things about growing up, really, was that you could no longer travel on your father's shoulders and get a nice, high view of the road ahead. She remembered sitting on her father's shoulders on that trip, unable to look away from the stars overhead.

_"Mommy! Daddy! Look at the sky! There are so many stars up there!"_ she'd said. _"It's like they're all looking at us!"_

She didn't remember what her mother had said, but she remembered feeling secure and protected, safe and warm and just plainly at home underneath the sky.

When you grew up, you couldn't wish on the stars to make all the unpleasant things in life go away either.

_Why didn't they tell me?_

"Chichiri-san, please," she said, biting her lip and looking at him anxiously. "What is going on?"

Chichiri looked at her. "I can't find my way back to Taiitsukun. Something has been wrong... with the world - here - for a while now, something... troubling. I don't know what it is, and I was coming to see Taiitsukun to see if she had any idea what's going on-"

"But why can't you find your way back? You must have been here a million times - and why... why does it matter if- I mean-"

"Mt. Taikyoku is the center of the Universe of the Four Gods - and Taiitsukun is... the creator of 'The Universe of the Four Gods'."

"Like, she wrote it?"

"No, I mean - well, actually I'm not entirely sure, no da!" said Chichiri, giving her the impression of a teacher pleased by a complicaed question and embarrassed for not knowing the answer. "But I don't think writing had very much to do with it, no da. But the fact that I can't find the way to Mt. Taikyoku and this Nyan-Nyan is, well, here, is..."

"Where should she be?" asked Hikari, glancing at the sleeping child and trying to imagine her being anything but what she appeared to be - for she was distinctively little, so much so that, when she wasn't awake and scaring Hikari by bursting into tears, the thirteen year old was inclined to feel protective of her. Protective and reluctantly empathetic. She couldn't go home either.

"She should be by Taiitsukun's side. I gathered,"_ in between her howling, _but he didn't say that, "that she can't find her way back. I think - I suspect, anyway, that she was sent out to find you."

"Me!"

"Hai, na no da."

"But why?"

"Because your coming to this world is unprecedented - there was no prophecy about a Shinzaho, or any ground rules, that I know of. If you're here, and if I'm right about all this, then Taiitsukun sent for you. And she sent Nyan Nyan here to find you - but she couldn't, and got lost instead. Why do you think," said Chichiri, gently, "that you're the only one who could hear her crying?"

"Because you don't seem to know your way around much?" said Hikari, troubled, but she could believe him, sort of. Not that she felt special or somehow the embodiment of love - if anything, she was just the opposite, with all her skepticism - but she HAD fallen into a book. Weirdness was to be expected, right?

"Well, I'm not normally this lost, no da. It's-"

"I get it. The cosmos is screwed up. That's a convenient excuse for you," she muttered, shaking her head.

"Daaa," said Chichiri, looking crestfallen, and making her want to throw something at him.

They sat in silence for a while, Chichiri patting the ...NyanNyangirlperson gently to make sure she slept through the night, and Hikari just looking at the twinkling stars and trying to process what he had said.

It was, to be honest, quite ridiculous. Her mother had been sucked into a book where she'd become a priestess, summoned a god and somehow managed to drag one of her purported warriors across space and time and married him to produce her, Hikari, who was evidently the embodiment of some ... beast god of love type person? How the hell did you even begin to process something like that? It would have been absurd if she wasn't sitting inside the book herself, talking to a wandering monk with a symbol on his knee. She wondered what it meant, but didn't ask, deeming it less important than needing to work out what needed to be done next. But she didn't ask him about that either.

Instead, watching the stars and contemplating how to deal with things far beyond her comprehension, she did what anyone who had been climbing a hill for the better part of the day would have done, and fell asleep.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Hello! And thank you for reading, if you've got this far. This chapter is weird and probably has you going "What? Where's Taka? What the hell is happening? WHY ARE YOU POSTING THIS USELESS CHAPTER UP!" And... I know. This chapter was supposed to have a whole lot more than just an explanation - but it just sort of decided to become completely different. As a result, nothing really HAPPENS, except you sort of now know that this ISN'T a fifth god story. And on the plus side, this means the next chapter is halfway done, sort of. Stay tuned!

Oh, also, help - Nyan-Nyan? Or "the Nyan-Nyan"? Or am I better off sticking with "Lai Lai"? I don't know. Please forgive the stupid discrepancies I do intend to come back and fix them, but feel free to point them out.

And:

(1) Gilmore Girl's moment. *bows to the powers of Lorelei!*

AND thanks to my friend SS-bunnyrabbitperson for pointing out typoes! There is no more broccToli and people are shifting with the 'f' where it's supposed to (as opposed to on a holiday in Majorca, leaving the rest of the word to look slightly... awkward).

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	6. 05 In the Middle of the Night

**Chapter Five **

**In the Middle of the Night**

* * *

_"The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards."_

~ Alexander Jablokov ~

* * *

It was quiet, a rare and wonderful state of affairs. Really, there was no peace for a bandit these days -- especially if the bandit had somehow managed to be blackmailed into coming home to babysit his three nieces (and no nephews -- the lack of men in his family was apparently turning into a grand tradition) while their mother visited her sisters, after of course having thoughtfully almost poisoned one of his closest friends to death. Chichiri had made his excuses about feeling off colour, but Tasuki knew the truth, really. Everything that went wrong in the world had to do with his sisters in one manner or another. It was The Way Things Were.

His oneechan's departure hadn't really spelled peace either. Three young girls was enough to drive a bandit to drink, which he couldn't do because they would tell his sister on him and that would just be unfortunate. At five, seven and ten respectively, they were loud and obnoxious, and if they weren't loud or obnoxious, they were scheming and it was a good idea to be aware. His sharply honed bandit skills had saved him from numerous "innocuous" 'experiments in cooking' that would have left him in as miserable a state as Chichiri had been, poor fellow. (No wonder he hadn't kept in touch, and Tasuki didn't blame him. Anyone would want to get away from the crazy household of (household).)

Women - you couldn't live with them, you couldn't live without them. Or, well, you COULD live without them if you had the brains to stay away from them. And he, Tasuki, Suzaku warrior, one of the last left standing (but he didn't think about it because it made him sniffle like his youngest niece), had to admit that, in this department, he had failed completely.

Clean, scrubbed around the ears, wearing freshly laundered and smelling... unusual (though his nieces assured him with great sincerity that this was because he was usually such a pig), he ventured out of the village in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep and a man could claim some space for himself.

About twenty meters from the house, he was struck by a large, heavy falling object.

Then, the object tried to grab him by the collar and pummel the crap out of him, which was a little annoying. Tasuki had experience in this matter. When being pummeled, the only thing to do was to pummel back until one could reach for one's fantastic magical tessen and flame the living hell out of one's assailant.

Accordingly, he pummeled back. His assailant punched him. They rolled around in the dirt for a little while (Tasuki making as little sound as he could -- couldn't have his nieces wake up, damn it, they took an eternity to go to back sleep and he'd only just managed to get out). Slamming his assailant's head into the ground, he reached for the tessen, but a loud exclamation stopped him.

"TASUKI!"

"Ara?" Tasuki stopped, squinting in the darkness at the attacker's face. Then he blinked, his face breaking into an abrupt sort of grin. "Taka? Is that you? Q#%^!$! ....what the $^#%&&# hell are you doing here? This is so- oh shhhh."

Taka, who had been trying to get a word in with absolutely no success - partly because his throat was still being squeezed by the excited bandit - blinked. "Shhhh?" he asked. "You could let go of me now."

"Oh," said Tasuki, letting him go with a grin. "Of course." He stood, giving Taka a hand up.

Then they stood there for a second, looking at each other, Tasuki's inordinate pleasure infectious enough to make Taka grin, even though, really, he hadn't a clue what he was doing here. "$%#^ Taka, you #%^!#%^!" Tasuki whacked him affectionately on the back, nearly making Taka stumble, speaking in a strangely low and controlled voice for a bandit who had once been slapped across the face with a placard with "DE-LI-CA-CY" written on it in large, bold letters.

"Why are you being so quiet?" Taka demanded, once he had straightened up, rubbing his bacl.

"Ah," said Tasuki, significantly. "Let's just walk away from the house a little, shall we?" Steering Taka along by the elbow, he dragged him away and didn't stop until they had turned around a corner.

"Whatwhatwha-" Taka stopped, narrowing his eyes and squinting at Tasuki.

"What?"

"You look... different."

"Do I? Never mind that, let's talk about y-"

Taka stopped him by leaning in very close to sniff at him. "You SMELL different."

"Argh," said Tasuki, scowling. "Stop $)%*!#*! sniffing me, you #%)* freak."

"Your hair is clean."

"Are you done?"

"Your FACE looks clean."

"It's called," said Tasuki, with some superiority, "a bath."

"I know it's called a bath. I didn't know you knew it was called a bath."

"I know it's called a bath," snapped Tasuki, through gritted teeth.

"Tasuki," said Taka, casually, leaning against the house they were standing beside and smiling pleasantly. "Are you going to meet a woman?"

"A what? A woman? Me? Don't be stupid, why would I want to go and meet a woman?"

Taka just raised his eyebrows.

"I mean I know why I'd want to go and meet a woman," Tasuki laughed, a weirdly high sound from a normally manly man of a bandit. "I have met a woman before. Women! In fact. Plenty of them. I know a lot of women. Don't like any of them, though, because, let me tell you, women are trouble!" he finished, glaring at Taka fiercely.

Taka cleared his throat.

Tasuki scowled. "Is there a reason for your flying visit?"

This made Taka sober up instantly, the worried lines around his eyes becoming apparent. "Hikari," he said, seriously. "Where is Hikari?"

"What's a Hikari?" asked Tasuki, blankly.

"My daughter! Hikari is my daughter, you damn stupid woman-meeting ass! And she fell into the book and Keisuke and Hana-chan came to tell me about it and so I followed, of course, and- you have no idea what I'm talking about."

Tasuki shook his head, sobering up also. "Haven't a clue. There haven't been any falling young women in weird clothes since Miaka. If she fell, it wasn't here."

Taka stared at him, despair and worry flashing on his now thinner, older face. "That is... that isn't good," he finished, sounding very tired. Tasuki blinked, watching his friend as the weight of his words began to settle in. It made him cringe, the idea of a young girl -- of a young girl who was Miaka and Taka's daughter, at that -- lying somewhere, helpless and confused and lost. Actually, that just made him furious, but for the sake of his friend, he held his ground, holding back his fury.

A moment later, he clapped Taka on the shoulder, leaving his hand there. "I have three nieces you could take back in exchange, if you like," he offered, with a half smile. Taka looked at him and smiled just a little himself. The two old friends stood in silence, considering the situation.

* * *

Night descended on the mountain that was not Taikyoku-zan, and though the fire crackled and burnt merrily (maybe Chichiri did give it a mental nudge or two every now and again), the cool night air pervaded the cave.

They were safe here, he was sure of that. Nyan-Nyan did not often talk about it -- indeed, they hardly ever talked about anything except a pressing need to 'FIX FIX CURE CURE' -- but they had magic of their own that derived only partly from Taiitsukun. Even if there was something amiss with the center... indeed, the creator of the universe, his mentor, then the little girl sleeping peacefully with her head in his lap would be able to protect Hikari.

Chichiri sighed, tilting his head again and listening to the sounds of the troops not very far away from the cave. He wished he could talk to Tasuki, even if the fiery-haired bandit was probably not entirely likely to have a solution. Or even great comprehension, really, Tasuki's area of understanding primarily being sake and women (and not particularly women) . But it was nice to have a friend to talk about things with. He wondered if he had made a serious mistake in not mentioning to Tasuki where he had intended to go. At least, that way, someone could stay with Hikari.

All he could do now was to put his faith in Nyan-Nyan and hope that it was not unfounded. That was what the being, who looked like a little girl at the moment, had told him when he'd walked into the cave. Taiitsukun had sent her to find Hikari and bring her back to her abode. Why had the mountain sealed itself up?

More importantly, how had these soldiers known where to find the mountain?

He had to get some answers.

Gently, he made to lift Nyan-Nyan from his lap, but stopped when he found her watching him with large eyes.

"Chichiri-san..."

"You can take care of Hikari-chan, can't you, no da?"

She nodded, looking at him anxiously. "Can protect her! I can!" she emphasized, sincerely. Chichiri smiled at her so openly that she smiled back, looking substantially reassured. He stood and patted her on the head, but she gripped his hand. "Don't go out, Chichiri-san! Bad men around!"

"Don't worry, no da. I should be back in a little while." He picked up his hat, placing it on his head, and reached for his staff. Then he stopped, and looked at Nyan Nyan, who didn't look very convinced by his assurances. "I might not be back in a little while," he amended, and knelt because the tiny girl's lips wobbled dangerously. He knew she wasn't all that little or even really a girl, per se, but you couldn't help but want to comfort someone that small. "But you can be brave, no da. Taiitsukun told you to take Hikari home, didn't she? You can't go home right now, but by morning, you should be able to move. Take the road to Eiyou, Kounan's capital. Tell the Empress Houki what has happened - but only tell her, and no one else. She knows about the other Shinzahos and should be able to help."

Nyan Nyan, compelled by her own nature, nodded, though large tears streamed down her cheeks. Chichiri wiped them with his cloak, and then rose.

"I have to go, no da. I'll come back -- but if I don't... take the road to Hong-nan, no da. And," he said, with a wink to mask the seriousness of the task he was placing in the hands of the Nyan-Nyan, "take care of Hikari, no da. She shouts a lot, but she's just homesick, no da." He looked over at her, and shook his head. She did not sleep peacefully, and the guardedness on her face remained steady. He knew it wasn't useful to contemplate on why and how, but he couldn't help but wonder, for the tenth time, why Miaka and Taka had not told the little girl of who she was, and where she had come from. Had they really forgotten about their friends?

Shaking his head, he placed a hand on Hikari's forehead just for a second. In a way, she was, as a child of Suzaku, connected to all the Suzaku warriors. She was what they had fought for - and, in a sense, what would endure. "I think," he said, oddly tentatively, "that we should check on all the Shinzaho. Maybe if we have them all, we could find a way to fix ... whatever this is... Ah, I don't know, no da," he shook his head.

Then, with a smile, and a "see you soon, no da!", he left the cave. Nyan-Nyan waited for a moment, before going to sit by mouth of the cave, to wait, anxiously, for him to return.

It would be a very long wait.

* * *

Keisuke made tea.

There were certain times in one's life where tea seemed to be the only reliable source of security and sanity, and this certainly qualified as one. It was perhaps the worst possibly of any such time, even though he knew it was basically asking for trouble to think of any situation as "the worst". If there was anything Yuuki Keisuke had learned in his many years as a basketball coach, and even more numerous years as Miaka's brother, it was that things could always get worse.

He snuck a peek in at the drawing room, where his sister sat with Hanako, each trying to comfort the other, though they were both beyond distraught. Damn Taka, he thought, irrationally, though he would never blame his brother-in-law for jumping into the book the instant Keisuke and Hanako had confirmed his 'sense' of what had happened. It baffled Keisuke as much as it fascinated him, the way Taka could 'read people's chis', or something like that. He was, at least, not creepy enough to read everyone's chis and make a production out of it, but he seemed instinctively connected with the people he loved. It would have been really weird, almost unbelievable, if Keisuke hadn't known for this instinct on Taka's part to have saved his sister's life on numerous counts before. Hanako and he had barely entered his office when he'd grabbed Keisuke by the collar (not unlike his wife) and demanded to know what was wrong. Then he had leaped into the book and left Keisuke and Hanako to deal with Miaka.

It was, when you thought about it, just a little convenient.

Obviously, Keisuke wouldn't have a clue how to deal with whatever was going on in the book. He barely knew how to deal with his sister and the thirteen-year-old. All he could do, while contemplating the situation, was to make tea for everyone.

Carrying in three comfortingly large, steaming mugs, he returned to their side and sat down. Silence prevailed for a few moments.

"I don't understand," said Hanako, suddenly. "Why didn't Sukunami-san land up where Hikari is?"

"I guess... it's like when we fell in -- we both landed up in different places at different times, according to where we were supposed to go. Maybe it's more important for Taka to-" Miaka took a fortifying sip of her tea, struggling not to flip out. All she wanted to do want to grab the book and throw herself in. But the book had opened in her hand, and she was right here. The book functioned like that, she thought. You were usually where you were meant to be. Despairingly, she looked at Keisuke, "What are we going to do?"

Keisuke shook his head. "I don't know. At least we know she's safe-"

"Safe? She's stranded in a place even Chichiri doesn't recognise! That's... that's not good at all," Miaka shook her head, and then closed her eyes. "I can't- I can't really think. Hikari is..."

"I know," said Keisuke, placing a hand on hers. "I know, but we have to do something. There's always a connection in this world, right? It was Yui first, your uniform next," he had the decency to cringe as Miaka grimaced at the reminder of the sheer horror their uniforms had caused, being the thing that connected this world and the universe of the four gods.

Then, as one, they both turned to look at Hanako, who blinked, large chocolate brown eyes growing even larger as she looked at them over the mug of tea. "What?" she asked, sounding alarmed. "What is it?"

* * *

The path had obscured itself again, almost as though the Nyan-Nyan's magic was making sure that no one could reach the cave. Chichiri nodded, grateful for this. Nyan-Nyan would not be able to fight for Hikari, perhaps, not in the way that Taka or Tasuki or Chichiri himself could, but she would do everything in her power to protect the girl. This was somewhat reassuring.

Humming, as though cheered by this, he went along the non-path, making sure not to look back, to where he could approximately say the soldiers were. It did not take them long to take the bait.

Not a little way off from the cave, he heard the rustling of the leaves on the path before him. "Who goes there?" he demanded, although it really didn't matter.

"Come along, monk," said a calm, and oddly slippery sort of voice. "Don't tell me your magic can't tell you where danger lurks."

This was unexpected - and the fact that it was unexpected made Chichiri stop. He stiffened, keeping his eyes on where he could sense a presence up ahead -- an inordinately powerful presence. There were others, hidden in the foliage around him, ready to attack in case he attacked their commander. He intended to do no such thing, of course -- not yet. But he reached out tentatively with his mind to see if he could get a sense of how powerful this commander was.

"You are under the misapprehension that you aren't going to talk," said the voice. "Admirable, but I must tell you, your efforts are fruitless. Ah," the voice sounded amused, lofty, "little mind games. You'll find these useless as well." The owner of the voice chuckled.

Then, something yanked him forward, as though someone had reached into his head and grabbed the core of his power with a cold hand and was now squeezing it. A horrendous pain exploded in his ... well, his being, somewhere on the inside that had nothing to do with his physical body at all. And he was deafened by unearthly screaming.

Over the din, clearly, came the calm voice. "Don't tempt me, monk. Breaking you open would be a true pleasure."

Chichiri realised, as hands grabbed him by the arms and yanked him him, that he had fallen. The pressure in his mind grew inexplicably - a violation of the most basic, most fundamental part of him in a way that was ungodly. Then, when he thought he would explode entirely, the pressure ceased. The screaming stopped, and the hoarseness in his throat made him wonder if, perhaps, it had been him that had been screaming.

"Hmm. Have you lost your little companion?"

Chichiri's eyes snapped open, his mark under his clothes flashing in instinctive protectiveness.. "You don't need to bother about her, she's just a child." And it occurred to him that he had made a terrible error, though the disorientation in his mind didn't leave him up to thinking coherently. It was like someone had reached into him and scrambled everything, his thoughts, his feelings, his training... his power.

"It hadn't occured to me to be bothered," said the voice, triumphant and casual. "Take him away."

Chichiri's mask fell as the soldiers dragged him away, not that he really put up much of a fight. His legs felt like water.

Once he was gone, the commander stepped out of the darkness to deliberately crush his mask under his feet.

"A Suzaku warrior," he said, musingly. "How intriguing. Send a message, Lien," he tilted his head. If anyone had been watching him, they would have believed he was speaking to the darkness, but the subtle rustling of the leaves next to him meant that his follower was listening. "To the Empress. We have found the fourth Shinzaho... and it's probably heading to Eiyou."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Hello again (quick update). Thanks for reading, if you are -- I don't really know if anyone gets through these chapters, though I see the traffic increasing. Hopefully this is because people are interested. ; *would really appreciate a review*

This chapter is basically all the parts of the previous chapter that made it too long - which makes it a short(er) chapter than the ones before -- but eh, size doesn't matter (right?). I don't quite know how to incorporate Tasuki's unique speech and dialect into english, and also I think using all the words he actually is without the !~$#% filter would violate the agreements ; So... yeah, it looks weird, but there it is.

Next chapter: a dream, a journey and another explanation (Tasuki style!). You may even find out who he was going to meet! XD

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	7. 06 Queen of the Bandits

**Chapter Six **

**Queen of the Bandits** (5)

* * *

"It started recently," Tasuki explained, as they rode up the mountain, "Two or three years back, maybe? Couldn't have been longer anyway. Dunno if it's because Boushin-sama is so damned young or what, but it's been really ... weird, you know?"

Taka, who was beginning to regret his decision to ask Tasuki to explain things of a socio-political character. Indeed, he was beginning to remember that it was generally a mistake to ask Tasuki to explain things of any nature to speak of; the bandit's mind appeared to work on a level that defied normality. He informed his friend that no, he did not know, and why the hell couldn't he explain in a manner that made SENSE, or was sense so thoroughly beyong his natural state of being that he couldn't begin to touch upon it. At this point, Tasuki elbowed him in the ribs and Taka concentrated on keeping himself on the horse as they rode up the hill (in a great hurry, it could be mentioned. Tasuki had said he wanted to see a "friend" and the "friend" wouldn't be waiting for very long and that the "friend" wasn't patient, and could they ride while they talked?) They were riding on the same horse(7), which had proved to be quite a mistake from Taka's perspective.

Tasuki continued. "The empire to the East, Sairou, has been expanding. I mean it's great, you know, they're all very prosperous and business seems to be bloomin' but if all this bloomin' happens at the cost of some poor bloke's wellbein', there's a problem, ya know what I mean? It gets really rotten for some people - an' the people who've been sufferin' the most of course have been those in Kutou - poor country- A dynasty changin' ain't ever a good thing, ya see - Chichiri's gone travellin' in tha' direction a little last year and he said it's really bad in Kutou right now. The tribes are all tryin' to get a one up on each other an' the emperor? He's a useless berk - dunno why Kutou seems to be cursed with those. Only I don't think there's any super-evil commander type involved this time around. It's just a bunch of evil stupid %)*%s %*)*!# around because they all want power. Emperor's just a ... a ... a convenient... guy-"

"Figurehead."

"Convenient figure guy head person," concluded Tasuki, triumphantly, ignoring Taka.

Taka shook his head. "What about Kounan?"

"Kounan? Well, you know - Boushin-sama is really )*% young. Too !)$*)$ young, if you ask me, just like Hotohori-sama was. Except he lacks Hotohori-sama's... inherent leadership qualities. Boy was always )#*!*$ whiny about his dad, if you ask me- always goin' on about how he wanted his dad an' needed his dad. Guess it comes from not havin' one around and all, but give the dad a break! He died fighting for his country, didn't he? Boushin-sama is #%)*!_#( old enough to realise that by now. But I don't know what it is with the guy. Damn economy's been failing for years. D'you know how poor this stupid country is? There's some market towns an' all- tha' little place we found Nuriko(8) at is thrivin'. But everything else is in the pits. Ya know how hard it is to make an honest bandit's livin' now? Sometimes when we raid villages, we find them so poor that we end up helpin' THEM out! Preposterous!"

Taka grinned into the darkness. That was exactly like Tasuki - to crib about having to play nice sometimes, and rant incessantly. He had stopped only to take a breath, for in the next instant, he continued:

"Boushin-sama- I don't know. Chichiri visited Houki-sama (dowager empress? word!) some time last year - and he said that something was amiss, but he had no idea what it was. An'-" Tasuki brought the horse down to a trot, before stopping entirely. They had now made their way up the hill, substantially far away from the village - though in the distance, Tasuki could still see the single light from the guard's lamp. An'," he persisted, sounding very much as though he was beginning to have a Serious Thought.  
Taka waited patiently - he knew his friend well enough to know that this wasn't his strongest point, and it had to be appreciated when he pieced together something, even if he had put together what Tasuki had only just managed to quite a while back.

"An' - oh MAN - If you're $#)%*( here and Chichiri, of all !)*&* people, couldn't work out what was wrong - then it must be a damn big cock-up!"

Before Taka could pat him on the shoulder or applaud, as was his instinct, a voice sailed out of the forest.

"Well done, genius. I can see why Suzaku picked you to be a Seishi."

It was, Taka noted, deeply amused, a female voice. His amusement grew exponentially as he glanced at Tasuki, to find him looking as though he was about to put several baskets of tomatoes to shame. Ahhhhhhhhh, thought Taka, a grin spreading on his face despite the seriousness of the situation. A woman.

"Ah," said Tasuki, clearing his throat rather obviously. "I, er. Well. You see. I do have occasional strokes of brilliance. You know."

"How charming," said the voice, sounding amused, though this was lost on Tasuki.

"Do you think so?"

Sucker, thought Taka, shaking his head.

"Who's your friend? You know us friendly forest bandit queens don't share information unless we know we're in equally friendly company."

"Oh him? He's a- he's just a-"

"I am Sukunami Taka," said Taka, cutting Tasuki short.

The latter may never have been good for a battle of wits but he was particularly indisposed right now. Taka knew the feeling. It was the sense of being smacked in the face with a pie - if the pie was attached to a truck and came with an inbuilt ability to repeat the process everytime one's object of affection - though one was usually one's affection's object, Taka sometimes believed - appeared before one's eyes. This swiftly changed in frequency when one was married, when one became used to seeing one's object of affection at all times, with and without make-up and varying stages of disarray. But it never really did stop entirely. Miaka could still leave him speechless - and she didn't necessarily have to be in an amazing dress or all dolled up for it (though that was a good way to render him speechless, he had to admit) or be saving a whole universe, glowing in a battle-red aura. It was the oddest thing, there was no rational reason for it and the only thing to do was to save Tasuki from further embarrassment by speaking up.

And then later, of course, he was going to laugh his arse off about it.

"I am one of the Suzaku Seishi as well - who are you?"

"Are you?" asked the voice, sounding deeply amused. "How interesting. But you must prove it - do something Seishi-like."

Taka blinked. "Eh? What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know," the voice sounded as though it was restraining great amusement, which it was, "you must have some kind of Seishi code? A dance maybe?"

"A Seishi dance? Ara, look here, crazy voice lady," snapped Taka, "what the hell kind of information do you have anyway?"

"We have eyes and ears everywhere, Sukunami-Taka-san," said the voice, proudly now. "As bandits, we do move in ways that not everyone can manage, after all. Or don't you believe me? If you don't... well, I don't blame you. Look what you have for comparison."

"Hey," protested Tasuki, finally.

"But," she added, before he could say anything more, "you will miss out on critical information about your friend."

Taka's blood ran cold. "What friend?"

"The really weird one."

"That isn't narrowing it down, exactly."

"The one with the hat and the stick and-"

"CHICHIRI?" exploded Tasuki, shocking Taka off his already somewhat precarious position on the horse onto the ground, where he sat rubbing his bum. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CHICHIRI, ANZU? AND DON'T YOU )$*)#&)!*%( HIDE ANYTHIN' FROM ME NOW!"

"Oh calm down," said the voice, sounding deeply unaffected by this sudden yelling.

A rustling sounded as she stepped forward, emerging in the clearing. She was not what one could call really tall, but she was nonetheless imposing, mostly because of what in the modern world would have been called "Total Effing Bad Ass Attitude" that she seemed to be oozing. She was dressed in something of a cross between men's clothing and women's clothing and it was not hard to believe she was a bandit leader, especially since she had a really large sword dangling from her waist and wore metal bands around her wrist. But she carried herself with a kind of deliberate knowledge about her womanhood that would intimidate any guy, Taka thought. Her hair was pulled back, but hung down along her back, whisps of it framing her face in a manner that was somehow strategic. And it was a fairly atractive face - which, Taka noted, for future-prodding-purposes, was touched with a bit of paint, in exactly the manner a woman would employ to have a man eating out of her hands. Even though she'd stepped into forbidden territory, insulting his friend, Tasuki had done little more than to yell and scare Taka off the horse - which had no lasting effect on Anzu to speak of.

Whipped, thought Taka. Tasuki was freaking whipped.

"What about Chichiri?" Taka demanded, before remembering that he was rather unimpressively located on the ground. He made up for this by making a serious face, which did not impress Anzu either. Tasuki was useless, red in the face and torn between melting into a small puddle of idiotic sappy attraction and being the scariest bandit alive - he failed at both and stood there, suspended in awkwardness, a picture of why Suaku had the love thing all wrong. Which he didn't, of course, Taka corrected himself reverently, and went back to looking very serious.

"Hold your horses, Taka-san," she said, grinning.

Pun intended, her grin said, and Taka had to admit, she had him somewhat.

"I know of you - this idiot can't really keep anything secret. Babbled about you lot all the damn time, it's quite annoying, even." She held out a hand, an offer to help him up. After a moment, Taka took it. Her grip was firm as she pulled him up. Strong and sarcastic - this woman, he discerned, was definitely a bandit. He opened his mouth to ask, but she shook her head. "I suggest we take this to a more private setting, Taka-san. We may have eyes and ears everywhere, but we are not alone in that."  
Inclining her head as in indication for the to follow her, stepped back into the shadows. Left with little choice - and this was only partly because Tasuki seemed incapable of doing anything other than what she had stated - with a sense of deep foreboding, Taka followed her as well, through the trees. A few moments later, he started to grin again, deeply amused.

"What the hell are you grinning about, Taka?" demanded Tasuki, glaring at him.

"That's a woman," said Taka, with a meaningful wiggle of his eyebrows.

"I know," said Tasuki, going mildly red again, which made Taka laugh.

"You were going to meet a woman!" he said, laughing.

"I was not! I was going to meet the woman who has agreed to take care of the gang while I was away! Not A woman." Taka only laughed harded. "Ara, WHAT are you laughing about? BAKA."

"Oh stop," said Taka, laughing so hard (possibly out of hysterics because his DAUGHTER WAS MISSING IN A CRAZY WORLD, but still) that he had to hold his sides. "You're killing me."

"Shut up," muttered Tasuki, scowling, stomping on the ground out of frustration. Taka cackled. "Oh just shut up. )$*&#! women."

* * *

Hikari dreamed, and in her dream, she sat by a river, leaning against a tree and looking at the stars. She was trying to remember what her mother had said - surely here, in her subconscious, she would be able to remember. Not that it mattered, probably, but for some reason, that memory struck out in her mind as important - as comforting, and secure, as she hadn't felt in... in, well, a long time.

_Once upon a time, a little girl had wished upon the stars._

It was a nice thought, at any rate. Of course, as she tried to remember, the ghost of the old memory flashed before her, a dream in a dream, in a manner both utterly fascinating and completely unhelpful, and then danced away. Hikari did not make too much of an effort to follow it. All she wanted was to get away from the day she had just left behind. It was a small escape, brief and weirdly something she was doing consciously, despite knowing that she wasn't really awake. Was it normal to KNOW one wasn't awake when one was sleeping? She didn't know, but here she was, anyway, in a space where thoughts and dreams collided in her mind, where she could somehow sit detached from her brain and just watch the stars. It was like taking the handof a stranger and having them whisk her away, which was odd, because she was still in her head, wasn't she?

"Hikari?"

N_ono. Go away. I don't want to be awake._

"Hikari."

She shook her head, eyes closed tightly against the familiar and yet, totally unknown voice._ I don't want to think about this. Why am I even thinking about this? Why can't I just escape, just for a bit? I want to go home._

**"HIKARI!"**

* * *

"WHAT?" yelled Hikari, her eyes snapping open.

She was back in the cave, the last of the embers of the fire casting a warm red glow on the rocks in the cast. At first she could only see the silhouette of a tiny girl sitting before her, but slowly, as her eyes focused on the highly tearful and sad eyes of an astounded Nyan Nyan.

Hikari stared. "Are you watching me sleep!" she demanded, suspiciously.

"Kowa-i-neechan," said the small girl, her lip wobbling.

"Arggh!" snapped Hikari, irritated, rolling over to her other side and going back to sleep.

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Sleep claimed her quickly...

* * *

The stars stretched out like a blanket over their heads.

Hikari stared at her friend - there was no denying it. She could still feel the hard floor of the cave under her, but she could smell the freshness of the grass they sat on, and the cool breeze of the night ruffled her hair. Hanako sat before her, blinking owlishly and looking strangely concrete in a realm that Hikari had consciously made abstract.

"_That _was weird," she said. "Did you just wake up and go back to sleep? Don't do that, it makes the connection so totally weird-"

_Hanako, what the hell are you doing in my head!_

The vision of Hanako, blurred around the edges and strangely wobbly did not move. "Am I inside your head? How weird. Hikari-chan, say something."

_You're annoying me. Let me sleep_.

"Are you normally annoyed by your dreams?" asked Hanako, in a curious sort of voice, proving to Hikari that this wasn't a dream so much as Hanako herself, sitting in her head and looking just FASCINATED. "Because if you aren't, then I really must be here, and not dreaming - this is all very odd," she finished, in a tone that sounded as though she was quite intrigued by all this and not particularly bothered. Yep. That was her.

Hikari tilted her head. _I don't normally dream at all,_ she lied.

Nor, she reflected, had she ever felt the need to lie in her own head.

"This is... weird," said Hanako, decisively, but in a tone that indicated that she was unsure of whether this was terrible or completely thrilling. Then, making Hikari scowl, she stood and courtesied in her school uniform and proceeded to prance around in the space in her mind. "I like your minddddd... it's so... warm and fuzzy."

Warm and fuzzy. She had to be joking. Hikari scowled, just as she acknowledged that she wasn't - not at all. She was really here, dragging her away from the pleasant dream about the stars and from her memory into a state of semi-wakefulness and total irritation, and making weird things happen - who had ever heard of getting a lump in one's throat from a dream-that-wasn't-a-dream of all things?

_It is weird, _Hikari agreed, glad to be able to speak without really speaking. Her voice would have been a muddle of wobbliness if she'd had to actually use it. H-how-

"Your mother and your uncle thought we could try this out," said Hanako, still prancing around.

_Try what?_

Hanako grinned. "I don't really know what they did but apparently we're connected, and I'm here, somehow, isn't that great?"

_It's the weirdest thing since Stalin,_ Hikari commented, dryly.

Hanako surprised her by stopped prancing around directly before her and leaning her head close to hers and trying to poke her in the nose. Her finger went right through Hikari's face, but a shiver ran up her back, as though someone had shaken her corporeal form somewhat. "Ah!"

"STOP that!"cried Hikari, and then looked around, alarmed by the sound of her own voice, strangely resonant.

Hanako laughed, amused and pleased by having made Hikari speak out loud. Somehow, she was in excellent spirits, an image of her that was familiar enough to bring back the huge pang of homesickness that Hikari had been avoiding in full burst. She looked away and then, drawing up her knees, put her head on her hands and rocked back and forth. _Oh, Hanako. I want to go home._ Another shiver down her spine informed her that her friend had knelt before her too and was trying to pat her on the head. She almost laughed, but the sound that came out was a depressing attempt, at best. _I'm - I'm so lost, I've never been this far away from home, and I just... I want to go home_.

"You're okay," said Hanako.

"You're the most ridiculous optimist I've ever met," Hikari said out loud, and her voice did sound wobbly now.

"But you are okay - Chichiri protected you and your father is in the book now-"

Hikari looked up, eyes wide, and, for a second, hopeful.

"He jumped in but landed wrong," explained Hanako, shaking her head. The hope in Hikari's eyes died, anxiety returning. "It was actually kind of scary, because he just sort of leapfrogged into the book and there was another bright flash of red - just like the one that engulfed you when you vanished. He landed somewhere else - on a friend of his, but far from here, and we don't know how to get in touch with him to tell him what's going on. Oh, and it was scary also because he just left us to tell your mother-"

_Us? My mother?_

"Yeah. Yuuki-sensei rescued me from Minami-sensei in the hallway - he was trying to take away the book and put me in detention (though I admit I got carried away and hit him with the book and that wasn't very nice)..."

_You hit Minami with the book?_

Hanako had the decency to look somewhat apologetic for about two seconds, and then she burst into a big smile. "I've never felt so completely... awesome. I mean it was not very nice, you know, and I should be sorry, but he's such a- such a BUM that I couldn't help it. AND he was trying to take the book."

Hikari grinned. "Well done! I'm impressed!"

"Thank you, thank you!" Hanako nearly preened. "And then Yuuki-sensei rescued me from Minami and you should sooo have seen him. He was like.. he was like a superhero. Except then when your dad jumped into the book, Yuuki-sensei FLIPPED out when we had to tell your mother and totally left it to me - so he's never really going to make a very good superhero, if you ask me."

_Tasuki? What's a Tasuki?_

"Tasuki is a person, silly - he's one of the seven Suzaku warriors. The others are Nuriko, Chiriko, Mitsukake, Chichiri, of course, errrr... Tamahome - your dad! It's so awesome, you have a superhero dad- and mum! Your mom is like... she's so brilliant- don't look like that, you will see them soon!" Hanako tried to pat Hikari again, but her hand went through her friend's shoulder. "Agh."

Hikari shook her head. "You know a hell of a lot all of a sudden," she commented, and then, commented in her "quiet" voice, _It's not...it's not that. I just don't understand why they didn't tell me._

"What would they have said? Can you even imagine? Anyway, maybe they were waiting until you were older or something - you know how parents are about that sort of thing."

_I have no idea._

"Oh hush," said Hanako, seriously, frowning at her attitude. "You've got to think a little more positively - your parents love you, and they're doing everything to get you back, and-" Hanako's image wobbled suddenly, her voice fading completely. She kept talking, talking even more urgently as far as Hikari could tell through the blur, but all that came through the curtain that seemed to have dropped between them was an unpleasant, garbled version. "...stron..." came through, a few seconds later.

"Hanako," said Hikari, uselessly, blinking and reaching for her friend.

Hana reached back, and as their fingers brushed against (and then through) each other, Hikari was touched by the inexplicable sensation of distance between them.

"...don'tbecompletelyobtuse..." Hanako's voice tuned back in and out, as Hikari, kneeling now, watched with wide eyes and tried desperately to hold on. But it was, very clearly, not something she had any control over. "... don'- ... black ... uni ... Chich ... CIAO!"

And with a wink, a cheerful wave and a peace sign, she was gone, leaving Hikari to stare, in the silence that echoed in her wake, at the empty space where she had been.

_Hanako..._

* * *

A babble of voices burst around Hanako. It took her a moment to realise it was just two voices. She was back in Miaka's living room, sitting on a couch (that was officially nowhere near as warm and fuzzy as Hikari's mind, she decided) with the book open in her lap. She blinked, trying to clear her head and zone in on the voices.

"...Are you okay?"

"What do you mean I can't be a superhero?"

"How do you feel?"

"I could be a damn superhero if I wanted to be a damn superhero!"

"Can you hear me? Hanako?"

"I mean I've never needed to be a superhero, whatwith having to keep track of all these other superheroes-"

"Can you see? Can you hear? How are you? Say something!"

"-and it's not an easy job, let me tell you-"

Losing it, Miaka turned to punch her brother really hard in the shoulder. "YOU ARE BEING USELESS, KEISUKE!" she yelled, furiously.

Hanako let out a "ha!" of laughter, and grinned. "I'm fine - I don't know if she heard me in the end but I feel okay- really, Miaka-san," she said, more seriously, as the woman knelt next to her and put a hand to her forehead. "I'm really okay-"

She was cut off by a very firm hug, fierce and intense. "Thank you. Thank you so much for trying. You don't know what that means to me- to us," Miaka said, her eyes clenched shut against the young girl's hair.

Hanako tilted her head slightly, and then put her arms carefully around Miaka. Not just because she knew of Hikari's mom as a bit of a loon, really, but also because she knew, or could very well imagine, what the woman must be going through. "I know," she assured her, patting her on the back slightly, even if it was weird for the kid to be offering comfort to the grown-up. "She means a lot to me too."

Miaka sniffled, and nodded, pulling back. "Sorry about trying to strangle you."

"I completely understand," Hanako smiled, sweetly. In a way that her own daughter rarely did, being a very serious sort of child. But it brought a pang to her heart anyway. "What do we do now?"

Miaka shook her head and looked at Keisuke before she answered. "I think... I think it's time to talk to other priestess from the book still alive."

As Keisuke nodded, she rose from her place before an utterly baffled Hanako and reached for the phone.

"Another priestess? Who-" Hanako blinked, cutting herself off at Keisuke's dirty look. "Look, I didn't really mean tha-" She tilted her head to the other side. "Well, I did. You chickened out!"

"Do you have any sisters?" demanded Keisuke, glaring at her.

"I have THREE," Hanako glared back. Before she could take any pleasure in his deep horror, she perceived a movement below her. They both looked down to find new characters appearing on the pages of the book. "It's moving..."

Keisuke took the book off her lap and read. "_'Tasuki and Sukunami Taka learned from Anzu-sama, the bandit queen, that the travelling monk Chichiri had been captured by the dark forces of Sairou. She explained that one of her followers had seen the monk being dragged away to Sairou, captive and bound. Upon hearing this, the two Suzaku warriors decided to follow the army and rescue their friend...'_ Oh this is weird. Sairou's dark forces? I don't understan-"

"Shh! Oniichan, it's Yui - Are you home?"

"Yes, yes, Miaka, I'm just getting in-"

"We need to talk to you urgently. Hikari is-" But before Miaka could explain, she was cut short by Yui's short yelp. "Hello? Yui, are you alright?"

"I- I'm fine... Miaka. Er. I'll- just come over, okay? And hurry."

Miaka blinked looking at the receiver with some surprise. "Isn't that my line?" she muttered, shaking her head. "Oi, you two - come along. We're going to Yui's."

* * *

And, in a different part of Kounan, a small market town was asleep. Certainly, it was way past its bedtime and sleep had been a long time coming. Only the official guard (who was any idiot member of community who hadn't been quick enough to back out of guard duty) was outside now, though whether he was awake or not was a matter of debate.

As the last lamp was blown out, the last shutter closed and the last curtain drawn against the chill of the night, the marketplace was cast in shadow. Quite different from the bustling, thriving sense of healthy commerce that pervaded its streets during the day, bright and shining against the grim fortunes that threatened to creep onto its streets. While Kounan had been suffering, this market town and a few others had held onto their profits. It was why they attracted so many bandits and marauding tribes, and why people liked to keep their lights on for as long as they could.

Now, though, when even the stars were on the verge of setting, finally, everyone had finally gone to bed.

Everyone, that is, except the anxious, watchful young woman who had been waiting for the silence and darkness that now cast the town in shadow. She had been watching and waiting for many hours, lying in bed wakeful and alert, despite that she had spent much of her day packing in secret, which could be an exhausting process. Yet, she wasn't tired so much as she was tense, high strung and waiting quite impatiently for the lights to go out so she could commence on her much anticipated Stupid Escape from the clutches of her home and family.

There was something to be said about being an unmarried young woman, whose neighbour's family just happened to have in their possession an unmarried young man - but most of it, in the opinion of this particular young woman, was not really worth saying. Marriage? Ugh. Sure, she'd ... accidentally agreed to marry him... which made things a little worse. But that was really only because she was annoyed with the person she actually wanted to marry, who was neither in the village nor particularly keen on marrying her. This was, she was convinced, because he was an idiot. A forgivable and fixable flaw which could lead to great ruin for her. Stupid boys...

And stupid parents, who thought marrying the neighbour's son was a wonderful idea. Damn it.

Therefore, the only thing to do, was to run away. She had always needed to get out, and this was as good a time as any to do so. She had borrowed her brother's old clothes for the occasion, scratchy and unfeminine through they were against her softer skin, and with her hair pulled under her cloak hood and certain modifications to her frame, using a strip of appropriately placed cloth, she could have been mistaken for a boy. Which was not really her preference, per se, but it would be less trouble if she was caught. All she had to do was to get out of the villlage and find her way to the road to Eiyou, and then she would be fine.

Feeling rather optimistic, she hauled the pack she'd made for herself on her back and, with her shoes in her hand to avoid making too much noise, pulled herself out of her window.

She was met by a cold gust of wind, though her fine cloak protected her from it. Around the corner from her house, she paused to put on her shoes. Then, she walked, sticking to the shadows, heading towards the eastern gate, where she knew Jian was acting as guard. Jian was a large and pleasant person, useless as a guard because he was slow and, really, too kind to be too much of a guard; and she wasn't above knocking him out if need be.

This proved to be wholly unnecessary, because Jian was fast asleep, snoring with his mouth open, bless his heart. Resisting the urge to put something in his open mouth, she walked by him easily, lifting the large plank that served as a bolt to the gate, and walked out.

A hand grabbed her by the waist the second she was out and threw her against the wall. "Thanks for making that easier."

"Ow.." Winded, she stared at her assailants, catching a glimpse of four men, all of whom were larger than her and bearing large, obnoxious grins that practically spelled out their occupation.

Bandits.

As etiquette demanded, they made small talk.

"Aw, did that hurt? He's a little one, isn't he? Now, don't make a sound and we'll only knock you out-"

"I don't think so," she snapped, irritated.

"Oh, got a little spirit, do you?"

"Why do bandits always ask such stupid questions?"

"What did you say?"

The girl let out a horrendous yell that took everyone aback. It sounded like nothing in particular, but was the garbled, loud version of 'CHUANYOUSTUPIDB ASTARDWAKETHEFU CKUP!' The bandits stopped in their paths. "Eh?" said someone, a little stupidly.

Then, several things happened at once. "GET HIM!" yelled the man she supposed to be their leader. All four men launched themselves at her just as the gate slammed open and Jian came rushing out, crashing headlong into one of the bandits with an expressive sort of "oooofffff!" Two of them stopped, but the 'leader' seemed undeterred, grabbing her to shove her roughly against the wall again. "AGH," she yelled, because that did hurt, and took him by the shoulders, gripping them hard, and holding him at arm's length. The irritation at the pain in her back, her heightened sense of fury, seemed to emanate from her.

Later, when Jian narrated the incidents to the heads of the guilds, he would say that it was almost like a red, flame-like aura glowed all around her.

It certainly took the bandits aback. Gritting her teeth, she yanked the leader closer to her face. "Don't mess with me," she stated, almost calmly, in a low, even voice. Then, she shoved him with all her strength, forcing him to fly backwards, seemingly airborne, into his companions. Jian, who was uncharacteristically busy with guard duty (smacking the bandit he'd fallen into with his staff on the head over and over again - crass, but effective), did not see what happened next. But in the next instant, all three men had flown into the wall, leaving behind a substantial dent. They fell, and then lay still. His own bandit now still as well, Jian stared, astounded.

"Reishun, you-"

But she was already running away from the city. A little way off, she stopped to turn and yell, "Don't tell my parents, PLEASE!"

Then, leaving in her wake the aftermath of chaos, she disappeared into the darkness, towards her freedom.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

So, I have some random thoughts, mostly to clear stuff up for myself and to clarify, just in case anyone comes along and goes "eh?" and whatnot. Also, last two random thoughts are footnotes, because THAT'S WHAT POSTGRADS DO DAMN IT.

1. Most importantly, thanks to MercuryMoon for correcting me about the Nyan Nyan fiasco - I kept writing "the Nyan Nyan", when she pointed out that it was just "Nyan Nyan" - Nyan Nyan being one tiny person with the ability to multiply. This causes some changes to the original plan of the story but I think it has changed for the better. As a result, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 will soon lose a lot of 'the's - though it's not a huge change, it just makes it ... cleaner?

2. Obviously, I'm not the first person to be writing a Hikari fic - but I want to state to begin with that I haven't read any others and any coincidences are, well, coincidental. This story is also in many ways my attempt to train myself to get through a whole novel length venture, which I have never been able to do. As a result, I have a rough deadline of one chapter per week. As a "down draft", this is expectedly choppy and weird, but feel free to point out these discrepancies - it's only going to help me write better, which...I'm not doing, as far as a self-assessment goes.

3. The gaps are intentional - I considered writing every single thing that happened out, but I think that takes away from the story somewhat. If this is confusing, let me know. I mean, I know you don't know where Chichiri is at the moment or what's going on with him - but that's intentional.

4. **AGES **- although I hope Tasuki and Taka's conversation makes this clear, only about six years have passed in the book world. If you think this is weird and non-canonical, you are not wrong, but there is a reason for this (other than me not wanting to write about thirty-three year old Seishis, that is) which will, hopefully, make sense later. So at the moment, Tasuki is about 35, Chichiri is 42 - but Taka is about 34 and Miaka is about 32. Keisuke, accordingly, is 37. Okay? Okay.

5. Yes, I sort of changed parts of this chapter belatedly... I know it's not the best idea but there it is. I was finding it very very hard to write the next chapter without fixing this one slightly first. The only things that have changed are Anzu's behaviour, and there is soem additional description. Will try not to do it again, sorry all!

6. I have only read summary for Sanbou Den on Tetris no Miko's page - be warned for discrepancies, anyone who has actually read it.

7. Soruen and Rimudo style! :D

8. Tasuki is referring of course to reborn!Nuriko, i.e. Reishun.

9. I hope the formatting of the dream-sequence made sense. If not, let me know (you can see I'm begging for a comment shamelessly basically) and I'll edit it :)

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

**This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;**

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	8. 07 The Quintessential Plot Point

**Chapter Seven**

**The Quintessential Plot Point: A Really Big Cock-Up**

* * *

_"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."_

~ Douglas Adams ~

* * *

Yui was a busy woman, which came partly from being an over-achiever and partly from being married to a world-class couch potato who had to sit around in an office all day while the cash-flows made him happy. It was just fortunate that she loved that couch potato to pieces, enough to have married him, and have had a child with him, and share her life with him on a permanent basis.

However, unlike Miaka, she had never quite been able to give Tetsuya such whole-hearted and blind love and affection that her own career and education had taken a backseat. As a result, she had a Masters in Business Administration, and worked for one of the city's top investment banking firms. In addition to being, of course, a mom and a wife.

In short, her days were ridiculously full, which was why, when Miaka's call took her off guard, she did a most un-Yui-thing and walked into her door. "Ow," she commented, "owowo- why HELLO Miaka!"

"Shh! Oniichan, it's Yui - Are you home?"

Trying to rub her nose and reach for her keys while still holding onto the phone, Yui managed a very hurried, and slightly painful, "Yes, yes, Miaka, I'm just getting in-"

There, door! She opened it and walked in, struggling with the phone, the bag, the door and basically the cosmic force of her over-full life. As Miaka mentioned something about Hikari, she managed to shut the door with her heel-clad foot. Then, she turned around to look at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed former general of the Kutou Army sitting, in his battle armour, on her couch.

"Agh!" she yelped, dropping the bag on her feet.

Miaka was speaking urgently into the phone. "Hello? Yui, are you alright?"

"I- I'm fine... Miaka." This was a little unusual. Yui stared at the man. "Er. I'll-" No, not her. They had wanted to come over. What was wrong with Hikari-chan? Oh, FOCUS Yui! "just come over, okay? And hurry." She hung up, still staring, her mouth hanging open in a manner that would have unattractive on a less attractive woman.

"Er," she said, awkwardly.

The man inclined his head towards her, raising both eyebrows with deeply familiar, practiced elegance and grace. The phone slid out of her hand and bounced off the floor, and Yui shook her head, slumping against the door.

"Your eminence," said Nakago, standing, as though out of respect. "Don't you recognise... your most loyal servant?"

* * *

When Hikari awoke, she found two large orb-like eyes staring at her unblinkingly.

"YAH!" yelled Hikari. "God, don't you ever sleep, crazy infant-" If she sounded spoilt, she had no idea that she did. And she made up for this ignorance by scowling and sitting up, eyeing the child suspiciously. There were times in one's life when one knew that things were about to follow Murphy's Law and go from being perfectly loony to all-out disaster. Plus, she felt it in her gut, something twisting unpleasantly in the way that badly made food could not. Something inside her - a whole part of her, it seemed - was feeling terrible, and she hadn't the slightest idea why.

Well, she did, sort of. She was stuck in a crazy world with no way of getting home, and was beginning to relate to that insane chick with shiny red shoes in her proposition that there was, indeed, no place like home. But even then, really crappy things became easier to handle in the morning with the sun out. But she felt disheartened and, indeed, afraid. And Nyan Nyan's unblinking, TERRIBLY anxious stare was doing nothing to help.

"What is it?" she ventured eventually, only half-suspiciously, for she was (on a level deep, deep down, she would argue) concerned by the child.

Nyan Nyan bit her lip. "Kowaiineechan was crying through the night."

"What?" Hikari's eyes widened. "I was-"

"Is kowaiineechan okay?" Nyan Nyan tilted her head to the side, making Hikari cringe at the cuteness. How did you argue with that sort of thing? You couldn't intellectually process something as cute. It was annoying.

"Yes," she said, abruptly, "I am. Are you okay?"

"Hai, kowaiineechan! Nyan Nyan okay! But-"

Hikari cringed in advance. Whenever someone had something really foul to tell you, they would assure you into security before dropping the bomb.

"But Chichiri-san not here. He not come back."

"...what do you mean? Where did he go?"

"Nyan Nyan not know," said Nyan Nyan, shaking her head. Her eyes had returned to their former large, tearful status, though this time, Hikari could empathise. "He said to Nyan Nyan he be back in a while but he not come back! Nyan Nyan told him not to," she almost wailed now, as Hikari listened with dawning horror, "Nyan Nyan told him outside was bad - bad people around on - but he no listen! He only say he be back, he be back but he no back! And Nyan Nyan afraid. Kowaiineechaaan- Nyan Nyan sooo afraid!"

Hikari stared. She wanted to tell the tiny person freaking out before her to calm down, but it was hard to offer such advice when one wasn't feeling particularly calm oneself. The sense of panic that had been brewing in her stomach since... well, perhaps the night before, was now beginning to make more sense. This did not make her feel any better. "What-" she cut herself off. Asking the same questions over and over again like a broken record was, while instinctive, not particularly useful. She didn't have a clue what to do, she realised - and though she was only thirteen, this was an odd state of being for her. "How long ago was this?" she asked, finally.

"Nyan Nyan not know - the stars had not yet made their full journey across the sky then," the little girl told her, not really making very much sense to Hikari, who understood hours, minutes, seconds, but not really stars.

"Okay, do you-" She stopped again. What was she doing? Was she really going to ask a seven-year-old for help? She wanted to scream that she wasn't particularly old herself, damn it, but in this situation, she was certainly older, which meant she had to be the one to take care of her companion, right? Hikari took two deep, calming breaths. This had never helped in any way other than to simple calm her down a little. "I'm going to go look for hi-" But Nyan Nyan fell on her hand.

"NOOOOO KOWAIINEECHAAAN," she yelled, clinging to her hand as though her life depended on it. And also, with a surprisingly tight grip for a kid. "YOU CAN'T GO OUT THERE. CHICHIRI-SAN SAID GO THE CAPITAL AND TALK TO EMPRESS AND WE NEED TAKE ROAD!"

"Road?" asked Hikari, mildly, considering that her arm felt like it was in the immediate danger of being yanked out of its socket. She considered kneeling, but that would just bend her elbow awkwardly. And she wasn't going to ask Nyan Nyan to let go and risk another bout of crying. "What road?"

"Road to Eiyou!"

Which was, she discerned, the capital. "How are we going to get to the road if we don't go out?" she asked, gently, carefully, so as not to cause an immediate outburst. But this turned out to be the worst thing she could possibly have said, because Nyan Nyan leapt up, bouncing around as though someone had set her behind on fire, while still holding onto her hand, of course. Owowowowow.

"Nyan Nyan will tell! Nyan Nyan can help! Nyan Nyan knows road! Chichiri-san said Nyan Nyan protect Kowaiineechan and Nyan Nyan can!"

"Protect me?" Hikari asked, moving around the cave as directed by the force of nature attached to her hand. Then, she decided that Chichiri had only been saying that make the child stop crying - a plan she was wholly in favour of. She could humour the kid, couldn't she? In a patronising sort of tone, she asked, "Where is the road, then?"

Nyan Nyan bounced up. "TAKE YOU TO ROAD NOW!" she screamed.

And yanked Hikari, for the third time in the last day, into a very small space. Hikari would later compare it to being swallowed, chewed, digested and then thrown out by the universe, or matter, or the cosmos, depending on how scientific you were feeling. As a result, when they popped back out into the world, she felt most, er, processed, and it took her a couple of minutes to realise that they were no longer in the warm, comfortable cave with the glowing embers of the previous night's fire for light, but outside in the bright sun. Lying on hard, gravelly ground, she squinted up at the blue sky, the silhouettes of tree tops framing her vision.

_What ... the hell ... happened?_

A figure appeared over her head, casting a shadow on her. As she squinted, the small face with large orb-like eyes she was becoming very, very familiar with became clear. Then it grinned. "Road!" it announced, meaningfully.

"What?"

"ROAD!" she emphasized.

"What do you mean?"

"Nyan Nyan bring Kowai-neechan to rrroooooad!"

Hikari blinked, straightening up. Sure enough, a long road stretched out on either side of them, shaded by large, friendly looking trees.

"Road to Eiyou!"

* * *

It was only five full minutes of silence later, that Yui realised that Nakago had made no move other than to stand up, and her dramatically slumping to the floor was beginning to look a little silly. Brushing down her skirt, still staring at the former general of the Kutou army, she stood up.

"I don't mean to sound like a cliche," she said, carefully, quite politely, "but what on earth are you doing here?"

Nakago looked amused. Yui discovered that this was a most unsettling expression on his face. "Now, is that any manner to treat your most loyal servant, Yui-sama?"

"My most lo- are you serious?"

"Perfectly," he said, with admirable calm. "Who was it that protected you all those years ago? I see you still carry my earring - you can't be oblivious."

Yui raised a shocked hand to her left ear. "I- but... but why now? Why- what are you- are you real or I am just losing my mind?"

"Would that be preferable?" Nakago asked, taking a few long strides towards her, his lips half-curved in what was meant to be a smile. Yui stood very still as he tilted his head, almost as though he was waiting for her to answer him. In the next instant, though, she realised that he was not searching for an answer - he was simply studying her face, as though intrigued by the fifteen years that had passed since he had last seen her. Of course, she thought. She was older than him now - almost twice his age, actually. It was a strange thought, one that was followed by another realisation, as she watched him raise a hand and place it along her cheek.

"Of course, that depends on your definition of 'real'," he said, sounding almost wistful. He pressed his hand against her cheek - through her cheek, and she had to suppress a shiver. "You do not look a day older than the last time I saw you."

She felt a flush rise in her cheeks despite her suspicion. "Don't lie," she said, still not moving. Although he was intangible, she could feel his presence right before hers and did not want to move through him to avoid the odd sensation. "I am thirty-four now."

"And married, with a child no less," he said, a sardonic touch to his otherwise pleasant voice. "You have fascinating family portraits on the wall above that throne." He tilted his head to indicate the haphazard, happy looking family photos of Tetsuya, little Jun and her above the couch.

Despite herself, she found herself amused by his terminology. "Yes, I am. Happily married and a mother," she added, unnecessarily, but slightly defiantly, as though daring him to contradict her. When he didn't, she unclenched her fists and tried to relax. "Why are you here?"

"Why, sick of me already?"

"No-ye- no," she finished, flustered, and irritated with herself for being flustered. "But what- you didn't just drop in for a quick chat, did you?"

"Is it completely inconceivable that a Seishi would want to visit his Miko?"

"Are you deliberately trying to annoy me or have you just lost the ability to be direct?" snapped Yui.

"My dear lady," Nakago smiled, his eyes flashing in victory, "I was never ever what you could have called direct."

Yui spent the next few moments in silence wishing that he was material so she could have thrown something at his head. During this time, Nakago walked up and down her living room, looking at the showpieces with great interest, as though it was some sort of museum. Where was Miaka? Yui wondered, wishing her best friend would hurry up. She did not live very far away, after all. Until then, what was she to do? Make small talk?

"So you're still dead, are you?" she managed, sounding very much like the slightly tactless and spoilt priestess of Seiryuu she had often been. It made her cringe. "Er, I'm- sorry, I didn't mean- I meant that... well, are you?"

"None of the Seiryuu Seishi chose to be reborn into a new life," he said, turning around from the crystal animal figures on the side table to look at her. "And all Suzaku Seishi who died did. It is not surprising, at all. We were never fighting for anything we really believed in. Not even you."

Yui stared at him, taken aback by this answer, which wasn't quite an answer so much as it was... well, she didn't know. The characteristic unflinching delivery of the words did not take away from the uncharacteristic emotion behind them, and she had to wonder. "No," she said, finally. "Not even me."

"I was," he said, raising his chin slightly. "Or so I thought, at least. Kutou... has always been a land of great turmoil. In the last few years, it has fallen to near ruin - did you know that?"

"No, I-"

"Of course... you have your own life. We didn't do as we were meant to. I never thought of that until...well, I've had a lot of time to think. We were meant to save the country, and we did not. The Miko was only to appear when the land was in great danger. Or do you think we did? By destroying everything, so that life could be rebuilt anew? A strange thought."

"Why are you here?" Yui asked, her voice hard now.

"Let your friend arrive," he said, taking her by complete surprise. "Things will become more clear, if we discuss this together." Then he sat down again, his expression a modicum of patience. As there was nothing to do but wait, Yui sat down as well. Silence fell.

* * *

The Road to Eiyou was long, winding and not always shaded by friendly trees, as Hikari soon discovered. Nor was the weather of this strange land very consistent. If she had been cold the night before, she was hot now, the sun high in the sky beating down on her head as she walked.

She probably made quite a strange sight - stranger than normal, that is: a short girl in a skirt that was fundamentally a representative of the Chronologically Regressive Schoolgirl Uniform phenomenon that plagued anyone who did not have the sexy, swanky legs. She had skinny legs, a slightly pudgy tummy that wasn't entirely rid of the baby fat and a not particularly existent chest, all of which had collectively been the bane of her existence up till yesterday morning. Obviously, her clothes made her stand out. The fact that her legs were skinny did not stop them from being On Display and for the first time in her life, Hikari had to hold back the urge to pop someone in the nose because they were staring too much. A novel experience, and not entirely pleasant, but there was no polite way of telling people to stop. Legs were something of a rarity in this country.

And, if anyone had been looking at her face instead of her legs for any length of time, they would have realised she seemed to be talking to her non-existent (well, mostly) chest, thereby looking like a crazed individual from a foreign land.

Of course, Hikari was not talking to her chest. She wasn't crazy and she had never believed people who said that breasts, like plants, appreciate a lullaby or two while growing (seriously, people just had too much bloody time on their hands). She was, rather, speaking to her pocket.

"Bound to attract trouble," she told her pocket, seriously, the moment she was out of hearing distance from the old woman and her very many goats (a number of which had thought her legs were very nice chewing posts). "I'm getting rid of this stupid uniform the moment I can."

"Kowaineechan pretty!" said her pocket, cheerfully.

"Everyone is staring at my legs! Don't they have legs in this stupid country?" Hikari grumbled, furiously.

"Legs, yes, but all hidden, ne? Kowai-neechan's legs veryvery naked!"

Hikari scowled. "Can't we buy clothes somewhere? Where the hell are we anyway, Hana- er, Nyan Nyan?"

She spoke with considerably more respect than she had before, having discovered that the screechy annoying child was more than just that. Nyan Nyan had transported them both to the road with what had seemed like just a tug on her hand. And if that hadn't been weird enough (and sort of awesome, really, if you thought about it, which Hikari had been - not too much to do on the road other than to walk and think), then she had, while apologising profusely for not being able to take her further because her power was mostly depleted now and she needed to rest, shrunk to the size of Hikari's thumb (bringing back vivid flashbacks of Thumbelina, which had triggered a sort of primordial kind of affection for the ... child-goddess-type-thing) and slipped into her chest pocket. Strange though it was - and Hikari had been complaining about it almost consistently since starting out - it was most reassuring to have a friend you could carry around in your pocket. She still couldn't call her Nyan Nyan, though; for some reason or the other, she reminded her so strongly of Hanako that she kept calling her that.

Nyan Nyan did not seem to mind very much.

"Hai! Kowai-neechan will find clothes in Eiyou. We are one day's journey away, if we keep walking."

"You mean if I keep walking," muttered Hikari, almost sulking.

"Hai!"

Shaking her head, she kept walking. They had had a brief discussion about Chichiri. Hikari had wanted to go and find him - after all, if Nyan Nyan could bring her to the road, she could jolly well take her back, couldn't she? But Nyan Nyan had pointed out, and Hikari had to admit it was true, that they had no idea how to look for Chichiri. He had said to go to the capital, and that was probably the best way to find him too. It did not stop her from worrying, of course. She would always worry. However, fortunately, as the sun had ascended from the east to being exactly overhead, the pain in Hikari's feet, unused to so much walking in uncomfortable school shoes, were in so much pain that it was a neat distraction from what she COULDN'T do to what she simply had to keep doing whether or not she wanted to. The alternative was to sit by the road and weep, and that would do no one any good.

And somehow, though it had been a long time since she had believed in dreams, Hanako's visit the night before had left her somewhat assured that no matter what she did, someone was watching, or reading. Her father was in the book, even if he wasn't here. Her mother was reading with her Uncle Keisuke. She did not think it made the biggest difference. Logically speaking, she still had to do this on her own. But it was, nonetheless, reassuring.

* * *

For the second time in the day, Keisuke made tea, as Miaka read out loud from the book, for the benefit of a rapt audience.

_'The Shinzaho of the beast-god Suzaku, Sukunami Hikari, walked for a whole day with Taiitsukun's helper, Nyan Nyan, in her pocket. The road to the capital of Kounan was long and plagued with difficulties, and soon, the Lady Hikari, found herself in need of food and water. But no help was to be found, for miles..._'

Hanako sniffled, and Keisuke could hear Miaka comforting her gently. It was good to have a younger person around, he reflected, because then you were forced to keep it together even if you were basically on the verge of freaking out.

Given that one of Miaka's audience was Nakago, who had once tried to take over both worlds and single handedly destroyed about seventeen blocks of Tokyo before he'd been distracted by the prospect of torturing Miaka some more and killing Tamahome, one could say that they had quite a lot to worry about. What the $%* was he doing here? Keisuke slammed the kettle back down in frustration, before carrying out the tea.

When had he become reduced to playing chef-and-mother? He had no idea.

Presently, Nakago spoke up. "If the Nyan Nyan creature is with her," he said, in a deep voice, sounding as though stating the words 'Nyan Nyan' made him want to scratch his own eyeballs out, "you do not need to worry very much... Sukunami Miaka." No one commented on his use of her full name.

It was awkward. On the one hand, Nakago had once been evil, but Taka had told Miaka, and Miaka had told Yui (and Keisuke had simply read the book) about his thirst for vengeance, and the cause for it. It took a hard hearted person to not feel terribly, terribly sorry about such a past. He had served Tenkou once, but he had abandoned the "god" once he had learned his own lesson. And he didn't appear to want to take over the world at the moment. In fact, he looked quite calm and comfortable on Yui's couch, despite that Yui, Miaka, Hanako and Keisuke (in that order, from left to right) all sat across from him, staring at him consistently.

Really, Keisuke thought, sipping his tea. One had no idea what to make of him.

It was Miaka who spoke up, after a long silence. "I think it's time for answers, Nakago," she said, sounding collected enough. "What are you doing here? What's going on in the Universe of the Four Gods? How- How did you get here? Wh-"

Nakago raised a hand. "One question at a time, Sukunami Miaka. At the pace your daughter is moving, we have a lot of time on our hands-"

Keisuke banged his mug of tea on the table, causing it to spill over.

"Keisuke," Miaka said, in a warning tone. Keisuke scowled. He may not be a super hero, but he was a big brother and big brothers did NOT sit in the same room as a man who had tried to rape their little sisters and caused them so much pain. It was a contradiction in his personality. Grimly, he held back. "Alright, Nakago. One at a time."

Nakago inclined his head. "In order of importance, then," he said. "The universe of the four gods is, simply put, slowing down." Everyone goggled at him. Ignoring this, he continued, speaking slowly and almost carefully, as though choosing his words. "In comparison to this world, anyway - but this is important, because, I think, the universe of the four gods exists only in relation with this one. No one seems to understand why this is happening; it is to do with the Origin of the universe of the four gods ... and origins are always obscure. But the discrepancy, if it is a discrepancy, has come into existence."

No one quite knew what to say about this. No one, it seemed, but Keisuke, who, despite his irritation, leaned forward, looking intently at the Seiryuu Seishi. "What do you mean "if" it is a discrepancy?" he asked. "Do you mean to say this... is what is meant to happen?"

"At this point, it is all a conjecture. You must," Nakago added, looking deliberately at Keisuke, "understand. After all, you were the last bearer of the book. Before this... child."

Everyone turned to look at Hanako, who uttered a small sound and shrank behind Keisuke.

"The book surely must reflect the age of the universe... it is growing old, it is in tatters, and its writing is faded. I ... do not know for sure - but all the priestesses have come and gone. Perhaps the universe of the four gods... the book, that is the link between this universe and mine, is coming to an end, and so is the universe of the four gods itself."

"But then why does the book want Hikari _now_?" wondered Miaka.

"The book may not want the Shinzaho of Suzaku," said Nakago, calmly enough. "The book itself may have nothing to do with the Shinzaho being summoned. The Shinzaho is an object that reflects the power of the beast god to whom it belongs-"

"That is my child you're talking about," said Miaka, through gritted teeth, furious.

"Yes," agreed Nakago, almost affably, "and your child is the Shinzaho of Suzaku. The holy object through which the beast god can be summoned. If the Shinzaho is drawn to the universe, as it has been, then it means that the beast god is calling it."

"Her, Nakago," said Miaka. "The beast god must be calling her. But- but why, if the book is dying-"

"And what happens to Hikari if the book dies?" cried Hanako, suddenly.

Nakago said nothing, but looked at her intently, making her want to shrink back again. But something about him reminded her briefly of Minami. People like Minami enjoying being bullies, but you couldn't be bullied if you stood up for yourself. With a serious expression, which wobbled, thus, Hanako stared right back. Finally, Nakago shook his head. "I do not know, bearer of the book. But you must have an object that serves as a connection to her, like the last bearer," he nodded at Keisuke, who blinked.

"The ribbon-"

"And our uniforms."

"So the uniform, as long as she has it, will serve as your connection." Nakago nodded. Silence fell on the group, as all four mulled over his words. "You need not worry as much also, Priestess of Suzaku, because the Shinzaho naturally attracts the same protection of the Seishi as a Miko does. Which is why your husband so poetically and pigheadedly leaped into the book-"

"Hey," protested Miaka, but not very enthusiastically. They would be talking about that when he got back.

"-and why the Shinzaho landed on Chichiri-"

"You are allowed to use her name."

"-and why I am here," finished Nakago, unflappable.

"You- what?" blinked Miaka, and Hanako leaned forward. Keisuke, however, leaned back, eying Nakago thoughtfully. "You're here because of Hikari?"

"Don't be deliberately stupid," said Nakago, in the same, calm sort of tone. "I am here to protect the Shinzaho of Seiryuu." He turned to look at Yui, who had been silent all this while, holding a tea mug gone completely cold by now. "The Shinzaho calls to be protected when it is in danger - and all Shinzaho are currently in grave danger."

"Wh- wha-"

"I do not know, Priestess of Suzaku. But a great danger has been brewing in the universe of the four gods for the last four years - ever since the universe began to slow down. It is as though the death of the universe... if that is indeed what it is," he added, frustratingly, "has left room for a new leader... but to take over the universe of the four gods, the beast-gods must be destroyed ... or, at any rate, their connection to the worlds severed. The Shinzaho are that connection. As you, former bearer of the book," Nakago turned to look at Keisuke, "would have already worked out."

Everyone turned to look at Keisuke, who stared at Nakago for a moment, and then signed. "Chikusho," he muttered, under his breath, with a sense of having a really bad dream come to life.

* * *

**Author's Ramblings: **I hope that the above made as much to you sense as Calculus does to me. Which is to say, if you're confused, I'm very glad! It means I'm sort of doing my job somewhat. Chapter Eight is on it's way, because apparently this works in pairs, for some reason. Take care everyone, and keep reading! :)

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	9. 08 Yearning for a Cheeseburger

_(Warning for slightly graphic stuff in the first section of this chapter. It's not explicit (I do not mention body parts or anything), but if it bothers you, then just proceed carefully!)_

* * *

**Chapter Eight **

**Yearning for a Cheeseburger**

* * *

In the twilight, the land of Sairou looked barren, abandoned and without hope. The desert stretched out for miles on all sides of the single horseman who was crossing it; the only sign of life and hope seemed to be a small camp in the distance. Lit by campfire that could be seen for miles around. Like a moth drawn to a flame, the horseman rode towards it, making haste.

He had been traveling for many days now, along narrow roads and passages that had been forgotten. His instructions were clear, after all – he should not be seen. Secrecy was of the essence.

A long journey on his mission has yielded very little information for a very long time. The horseman had not stopped since he had started, several months ago. Though he received news through the secret code that the desert tribes had designed many centuries ago, and knew that the men who had started out had been successful, he had not returned, nor seen or heard from his family, though he believed that they were cared for by the state.

Three weeks ago, he had finally discovered something – something terribly important and crucial. Enough, he believed, for him to make the treacherous journey back home in order to tell the Commander about it. Surely, his Commander would appreciate the effort – and perhaps he might be rewarded with a respite from his fruitless mission.

For several days and nights he had traveled, pausing to rest only infrequently, when it became absolutely necessary. Now, at long last, he had found the camp. Alighting from his horse about a hundred yards from the tents, he walked the rest of the way. As he expected, he was stopped soon, by hidden guards who watched over the camp. He gave them the password and was led to the camp, his horse taken away for a deserved reprieve.

Light from within the Commander's tent cast long shadows across the camp. The horseman stepped in and bowed low.

"Commander Xiang," he said, respectfully, not looking at him. A silence followed this, and the horseman could almost feel the commander's eyes boring into him.

"You have not succeeded," said the commander, finally.

The horseman's blood ran cold. "I- I have important news, though," he said. Surely, surely this news was important enough for the commander to value. Surely, he had not made a terrible mistake. He looked up carefully to find the commander looking at him intently, a tall man with piercing black eyes, which possessed a sort of fathomless depth and a hint of the kind of power the commander wielded. The horseman had heard stories but never witnessed for himself the power of the commander.

"Speak," said the commander, finally, watching him as though with interest.

"The southern kingdom – where the holy objects you seek were hidden… it is on the verge of collapse-"

"Are you enlightening me about my own strategies, soldier?" asked the commander, sounding bored.

The horseman's eyes widened. "N-no, commander," he stammered. "I only- That's isn't the only thing." But his heart was shrinking with a kind of cold fear that left him nearly paralysed and unwilling to continue. God… _Byakko_… he had only ever wanted to serve his nation and be with his family. Hadn't he been roaming the lands for several years now? Hadn't he proved his worth? Swallowing, he took heart and pressed on. "The holy objects… they have been stolen."

The horseman looked at the commander to see if perhaps this was news to him, but the man remained expressionless. He was not terribly young; he did not look young. But he did not look very old either, his face essentially smooth, though not handsome. For the first time, the horseman saw, while looking at him, an unreal glow.

"Stolen," the commander repeated, speaking finally in a deep tone. The horseman almost sighed with relief, but held himself together. "Stolen by whom?"

The horseman spoke eagerly now. "One of the top generals of Kounan himself stole them, commander. He knocked out two palace guards and fought his way through. The king," a slight hint of derision entered the horseman's voice, "paid the palace guards off to be silent about it, and few know of this. But I discovered it." He sounded proud. "And that is why I traveled back to tell you about it."

The commander looked at him with those deep, fathomless eyes and his lips curved up slightly, cruelly, at the sides. "Hm," he said, holding the horseman's gaze. "Anything else?"

The horseman shook his head. "No, C-"

And he collapsed on the ground, clutching his throat, unable to finish what were his last words. Unable to breathe, choking without sound, he stared at the commander as the man stood up. Slowly, he walked towards the dying man and tilted his head, a cold smile on his face.

"You are wondering why I am punishing you," he observed, as the horseman suffered. "I shall tell you, though it will not matter. A lot of commanders are careless. They bestow favours for popularity and believe it will sustain their power once they have ascended. They dilute their powers through self-delusion. I am not such a commander, and I like to leave behind a clear path. You are insignificant, but you can become a great danger. And that is why I have to kill you." He seemed to smile, but the man's vision was blurring.

Then, the commander lifted a finger, and the horseman exploded, all over the tent, without the slightest sound of his painful and unjust death. That which had been his earthly body coloured the tent in a bright red – the colour of the southern nation that the horseman had so patriotically doomed to destruction.

The commander, though he had been standing right before him, was untouched by the blood that drenched his tent.

"Not a clean path, though," he said, after a moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

* * *

Thirty-four years old, running a successful business, and at the end of it all, he still found himself sitting on the ground and eating a truly ghastly soup/stew/gunk of what could only be referred to as roots and other crap from the forest. There was no justice in the world. Admittedly, he had cooked this terrible stew, but anything was better than eating whatever concoction Tasuki came up with.

As it happened, the bandit was currently sulking, quite annoyed with him for picking on him relentlessly about Anzu all day, and left to himself, he may have poisoned Taka.

But Taka felt that it was his duty as Tasuki's friend to make his life as much of a living hell as he possibly could. It may have been a previous life in which Tasuki had tried (not unsuccessfully) to burn him to a crisp several times, but he, Taka, had not forgotten. He had a jewel of memories full of being burnt to a crisp to prove it.

Plus, Tasuki was just a really, really easy target about his woman. It took one phrase, and the pleasant, friendly banter that had occupied them all day started up again.

"She's not MY #*%)*)$*$ woman, you #)%*)*#(#($*$!"

Taka grinned into his terrible root-and-other-crap stew. "That's for sure. She has you whipped, Tasuki!"

"She does not have me whipped!"

"Which is why she has control over your gang at the moment?"

"I told you, my sister would have called all my other sisters if I hadn't agreed to take care of the kids-"

"Why couldn't Kouji have done it?"

"What, are you mad? Leave my best friend to those hellions?"

Taka raised an eyebrow. "Well, he's there now.."

"It's an emergency! I meant before! "

"I meant before too!" said Taka, persistently, "why couldn't he have taken care of the gang before? You stupid moron," he added, almost affectionately.

"What, and leave those poor kids with Anzu?" Tasuki demanded.

Taka snorted eloquently.

"Shut up, you #)W$," said Tasuki, with equable affection. "You're not getting the fiery end of my tessen only because you're pathetically depressed about your kid."

This reminded Taka that he was, in fact, pathetically depressed about his kid and he fell into silence. Where could she be? And why hadn't he landed where she was? What the hell could the universe of the four gods want that was more important than her? And hadn't Miaka's chi always guided him to her? It was so stupid and contradictory that the whole absolutely structureless logic of the thing was collapsing now, when his only daughter was trapped somewhere.

Still, he had to admit that in absence of any other knowledge about her, getting to Chichiri was probably the safest and quickest way to find her.

And, being a really loyal friend, he felt guilty about this instantly. Of course he was concerned about Chichiri... That thought made it sound like a battle-plan rather than an honest rescue of a friend. Taka knew himself well enough now (searching for the essence of his soul with a whole plethora of demons after him could do that to a guy) to know that he was loyal enough. And that, if he had to choose between Chichiri and Hikari, he would pick his daughter in a heartbeat.

"Swallowed a bug, have you?" Tasuki asked, sounding hopeful and drawing him away from this profoundly unpleasant thought.

"Don't sound so excited about it!" retorted Taka, shaking his head, but glad for the distraction. "No, I just- I'm just trying to work this out... how the hell did Chichiri get captured? He is the smartest of all of us- except perhaps Chiriko, you know, but he's ...clever! And he's powerful, even if he looks like a weirdo - so who the hell could have captured him?"

"I don't know," said Tasuki, after a moment of swallowing down that which he was almost sure was a bug. Being a bandit, he decided he could stomach it. "But there's been a lot of rumours floatin' around. About Sairou and the king there. I'm not sure how he ascended, he was some kind of war general- but no one seems to know very much about him. And they're all over the place."

Taka nodded, frowning. This was true. They had almost run into a number of troops on their way so far, and they had not even reached the border. The western country seemed to have expanded. Not violently - or at least not in a manner that was, in any obvious way, violent. But in a subtle, leisurely kind of way, like a fat, greedy ass sliding all over a couch to take up all the space he could. Taka and Tasuki had been forced to proceed slowly, because soldiers kept popping up everywhere, and although no one seemed to like them very much, no one had seemed surprised about it - so it must have been that way for a while now.

"Just how did Anzu find out? Your bandits were never very good at subtlety," commented Taka, to receive a smack to the back of his head with the empty bowl. "Oi!"

"My bandits were very subtle and awesome!"

"The first time your bandits met the Suzaku warriors, they spent the night getting drunk and hitting on Hotohori!"

"Not my damn fault the %#)(($*) emperor of #)%&*)(# Kounan looked like a !$)&*$ girl!"

"Yes, that screams of subtlety."

"!$*)#%*! Anzu is," Tasuki scowled and looked like he'd rather eat whatever was left on Taka's plate than finish his sentence. "Well, she's a harsh mistress, but she's clever."

"Hmmm... she couldn't be lying, cou- OKAY CALM DOWN!"

Tasuki, glowering, whacked him on the head with the tessen. (It was a trend, really; if you travelled with Tasuki, your head soon started to feel like a ping-pong ball.)

"You must really like her," said Taka, but before Tasuki could respond, he added, "I just...don't understand. How could- the only person more powerful than Chichiri was Nakago - and even he couldn't capture him. What the hell happened?"

* * *

"Your husband has acquired great powers of observation," said Nakago, looking at Miaka. He looked so ... strange and unlike himself, with a weird expression on his face that it took Miaka a couple of minutes to realise that he was looking pleased.

_…that's the creepiest thing ever_, she thought, but looked away tactfully.

"Oh, shut up Nakago," muttered Keisuke. He was sitting on the floor in between the the two couches (Nakago conspicuously alone on the "throne" under Yui and Tetsuya's family photographs, and everyone else on the other side - how had he become the bridge between the two sides? Keisuke really never knew how these things happened). "_'In the meanwhile,'_" he read, "_'the Lady Hikari, Shinzaho of Suzaku, arrived at the 'Shichang' (1) village of Kounan, at the same time as the young girl who had run away from home...'_"

* * *

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains in the west by the time Hikari reached the next village. In the blue twilight that followed, her spirit - already rather low - sank further. It was difficult, after all, to stay positive when one hadn't eaten in a day (a fact she was trying very hard not to think about) and only had a drink of water several hours ago when a kind merchant had taken pity on her. If her feet had been hurting before, they were not now, but only because she could no longer feel them at all. The design of her miserable school shoes hadn't done very much for her impromptu journey. In fact, she thought, irrationally furious, the school uniform in totality had done absolutely nothing for her. Just one more reason to plot the destruction of her school once she returned.

If she returned at all.

Exhausted, she bit her lip and walked in. It was small village, set to one side of the road to the capital - as though confused about whether it was a stop for passers by on the road or a normal, agricultural village. On the other side of the village was a stretch of forest. Maybe they could sleep there, Hikari thought.

But she turned towards the village anyway, even if she didn't have the money to pay for food or lodging, and what she had taken to calling The Leg Problem would prove to be of no great assistance to her once inside. But there were people there, and lights, and sound - all of which was far more appealing and comforting than the idea of heading into the village alone. Well, she had Nyan Nyan for company, at least, but it wasn't the same as having a normal sized human being who didn't scream, yell or cry at a moment's notice. It wasn't homesickness, she told herself. But the sight of a mother shouting at her small son for being late coming back home made her turn her face away.

A small procession of carriages has just pulled in, by the looks of it, and a number of people alighted, adding to the bustle of the small market. Hikari stayed off the main road. She didn't really need to attract any more attention than she had already. But she watched from the dark space between two inns as people in different clothing stepped off.

"Looks like they're going to stop here for the night," Hikari told Nyan Nyan, who looked at her from her pocket. It was unnecessary narration, but it made Hikari feel better to speak. It distracted her from the huge mess she was in, at any rate. "There are ... wow, they're all men- almost, it seems, anyway. Except that one girl-" She squinted slightly.

In her hungry and exhausted state, her focus must have been blurring somewhat.

As she looked at the young, slender girl who had stepped out of the carriage, she found that she had to blink and rub her eyes for a minute. Her vision had blurred, and for a moment, she found that she was seeing double. Oddly, she was not seeing double of the same person, so much as she was seeing two different people who looked very similar standing in the same spot.

The girl, sensing something in the shadows, turned to look directly at Hikari. Though of course, she could not see her - Hikari was well hidden in the shadows, wasn't she? The thirteen-year-old did not move, looking at the youth.

Something inside her jumped a little, but that could have simply been because the youth, boy or girl, was extremely attractive and she was, despite her predicament, a thirteen-year-old girl prone to having silly crushes. Hikari wasn't alone in this either; a number of other heads turned to look at her - or him. Her slender build made it difficult to say, and she carried herself with a sort of confidence and grace that did not belong quite clearly to any gender.

And for a moment, just for a moment, she saw a faint, but powerful, pulsating red aura around her. Then, the young woman turned away, and the spell was broken.

"-_anyway_," finished Hikari, letting out a breath. "Just one girl in three carriages - you guys run a really tight show around here, don't you, Nyan Nyan?"

"Nyan Nyan not understand-"

Hikari sighed, shaking her head and leaning back against the wall. "Never mind," she said, and fell silent, listening to the sounds of the market. People were yelling - board and lodging, food and water, cheap accomodation and good service, fruits and vegetable... oh, what she wouldn't give for some fruit. A nice juicy apple would be just about lovely at this time.

_Argh. Okay, no,_ Hikari, she told herself. _Think about something else. Death!_

And her mind responded with an image of a large juicy apple.

_Doom!_

Apple being cut in half...

_Global poverty_.

Four quarters...

_Global warming._

A nice bite of the big juicy apple...

_Drug trafficking!_

And maybe a large cheeseburger to go with it.

_Corruption! Ethnic genocide! Sarajevo, Bosnia, Burkina Faso-_

And frrrrrrrrrrrries.

"Er, excuse me," a pleasant, lilting, musical sort of voice interrupted her profound inner debate. Hikari lifted her face from her hands, where she had been trying to rub her eyes in an effort to focus on anything but food, with no effect other than very reddened eyes. Then she stared, slightly alarmed, with the same tug inside her that she had felt a minute before. Sharp and beautiful eyes peered at her, and though the girl's (because she was definitely a girl) face was tilted slightly comically to the side, the face inspired no humour. Admiration and envy, perhaps, but mostly wonder. She was a very beautiful girl. "But, is there a particular reason why you are standing here in the dark? Do you need some help?"

"Um," said Hikari, as she normally did when meeting someone new. "I... no, I just- I'm just-"

"Hmmm?" said the young woman, tilting her head.

Hikari felt really uncomfortable. The young woman was about six inches taller than Hikari, who was about five feet tall. It didn't give her enough height to tower over the girl, but it did make her imposing. Or perhaps that was because, while Hikari had not bathed in a day and a half, was hungry and dirty, and in the worst attire possible for this world, this young woman seemed very put together. Though she was dressed in coarse cloth and in men's clothing, and had a bag that she had slung over her shoulder very casually, she still fit in a lot more than Hikari did. _And _she was protected from the chill that was beginning to descend. These things made a hell of a lot of difference, and had Hikari been on the brighter side of adolescence, she would have realised all of this. What she did feel, instead, was grubby. Grubby and miserable and really, really hungry.

"I'm just... not dressed properly," she said, a little lamely. Not dressed properly, in a foreign land and walking to the capital to meet the Empress and basically in a Very Big Mess.

The young woman didn't seem to notice any of this. She leaned back to take a look at Hikari, making her feel more scrutinised. But not in the disgusting sort of way that she had experienced all day. Rather, she felt like for the first time since the last night, she had found someone who looked at her to actually see her in the sense of looking at her, and not her legs or her weird dress, but her. This made little sense, but was also, in her defence, the kind of thing you only understand once the awkward adolescent years have passed one by.

"You _are _showing a little leg," agreed the young woman, and then grinned. A simple, easy sort of grin that was infectious (without being slightly alarming, like Hanako's). "Do you know, the last time someone who showed that much leg was seen in this country, it was because she had come to save the land-" The young woman cut herself off, catching the look of shock on Hikari's tired, and more than a little dirty face. Shock and suspicion did crash over Hikari, a wave of doubt and anxiety catching her. But then the older girl shook her head. "Don't worry - you don't have to fear me. But that is too much leg to go unnoticed, if you're trying to keep things a secret."

Could she trust her? Hikari wasn't sure (she was never sure), but she could not see any reason not to - and indeed, if she didn't trust her, what would she do? It was just a conversation - they had that in modern Japan too, after all. "Um," said Hikari, swallowing down her doubts. "Um, well, yes. I- I do realise that- this is... what I have-"

"Is it a new kind of fashion? It looks ... freeing," the girl looked almost wistful. "But that's all you have?"

"Um, yes-"

"Is 'um' some sort of way of addressing people, where you come from?"

"Um." _Argh. Stop it,_ she told herself. "No, that- I do that, sometimes."

"Hmmm." The young woman fell silent.

Hikari, self-proclaimed social disaster looking for a place to happen, bit her lip. She was supposed to say something. She was SURE she was supposed to say something, damn it - but she had no idea what she COULD say. When not angry or talking about an important socio-political issue, Hikari lost her ability to come up with non-inappropriate topics of conversation. She could have talked about the weather. She could have talked about music. Hell, at this conjuncture, she could just as well have stayed quiet.

But instead, she said, "You're really pretty!"

The woman's eyebrows shot up, the beginnings of a smile flashing on her pretty face.

But then, to make it worse, Hikari turned bright red, and said, "Sorry! I didn't mean that!"

The woman's eyebrows shot up higher.

"I mean I did! I just didn't- I don't normally go around complimenting women. Not that there's anything wrong with that, really, because..." _Backpedal. Right. Now. Damn it._ "I mean _I_ don't care anyway, not saying you shouldn't either, this is after all the past so I suppose we're all sort of stone-age-like about that kind of thing- _god_, I'm just really hungry, that's all!" she finished, staring at the woman, aghast.

Then, closing her eyes tighly, she attempted to embed herself in the wall, thunking her head against the hard surface.

There was a great and terrible silence that followed her words. And in this great and terrible silence, Hikari considered the benefits of having the earth open up under her feet and swallow her whole. Verbal diarrhea - bane of the socially inept. In this universe, she may have been the naked person with legs, but in the other world, she was still a thirteen-year-old socially stupid and absolutely nerdy middle-school student.

To her great relief, and everlasting surprise, the young woman threw her head back (which she could not see, her head currently being thunked repeatedly against the wall) and laughed. A strange, pleasantly lilting, oddly Santa-Claus-esque full laugh. "Hoho- okay! We can get you food!"

"I have no money," muttered Hikari, miserably. Oh, she was very glad this woman wasn't offended, but that didn't change the fact that she was a total spaz.

"Oh, cheer up," said the young woman, as if this was ever so easily done. Hikari had deep misgivings for people who behaved as though everything was easily done, really, but she didn't have the energy to comprehend this clearly. "Younger people aren't supposed to pay anyway, are they?" she said, with a broad sort of wink.

Once again, Hikari had to blink away a second image. Was she going mad?

Grinning, the winking woman took her firmly by the arm and Hikari found she couldn't argue. This was, of course, not because she wasn't in possession of the words for; she was certainly in possession of a lot of words at the moment, so much so that it was very hard not to spew out an array of grateful babble. But because the woman's hold on her arm was somehow vice-like, and though she moved with an easy grace that indicated that she wasn't making any effort at all, there was a great strength behind her little tug.

"Um," started Hikari, slightly alarmed, but by the time she could frame an appropriate question about this, they were at the door of the inn whose wall Hikari had made such excellent use of not half a minute ago. The restaurant was on the ground floor and a lovely smell of food - completely unknown to Hikari of course - drifted out, distracting her from her well-meaning objections.

"There you go again - what does 'um' mean anyway? Table for two please!" the young woman announced, loudly and determinedly. Before anyone could say anything about it, she dragged Hikari past the innkeeper and marched up the stairs to the tables on the first landing (where there were fewer men ogling them both). "There!" she said, marching over to a table.

"Kowaineechan?" asked a small voice, but Hikari shook her head vigorously.

"Not now!" she told her pocket, in a hushed voice. The young woman gave her a slightly odd look, and then yanked her over.

Hikari found herself pushed down on a chair, hard. So hard that it actually hurt. "Ow?" she asked herself, blinking at this and rubbing her bottom a little. That couldn't have hurt, right? She'd just given her a little push.

The young woman, in high spirits, seated herself across from Hikari. "I'm so glad I found a friend here," she said, chattering comfortably, ignoring Hikari's raised eyebrows. Had anyone said anything about being _friends_? Was this her way of making Hikari comfortable? Was everyone in this world totally crazy? "I have been travelling alone all day and I have to say it is _bo-ring_. How about you?"

"I-" Hikari bit her lip, reminded of Nyan Nyan, snuggled in her pocket and being fortunately quiet (or maybe she was just asleep - Hikari didn't dare look down to check). "Pretty much the same."

"How did you come here? Horse? Carriage?"

"I...walked?" finishing Hikari, becoming very uncomfortable.

"You walked?" the woman asked, giving her a look of surprise and some disdain. "What do you mean, you walked? Are you a peasant of some kind?"

Hikari blinked. Fascinating. And really rich coming from a woman in coarse sackcloth. Marxism at work. She shook herself. "Er ...no (but would that matter?).. I'm a- I'm a student?" It was, at least, somewhat close to the truth.

"Ohhh, one of those crazies.. where are you going, then?"

"I'm- er, to the capital?"

"Oh me too! Maybe we could travel together- _hey_!" The woman waved suddenly, summoning a waiter. A skeptical, skinny man trotted up a moment later, and a long exchange about food that Hikari failed to follow entirely started. Which was probably a good thing, that she couldn't understand it - she had the absurd urge to eat the waiter's arm, she was so hungry.

Instead, she looked around the inn. It was all you could really expect of a restaurant in an inn - tables, chairs, loudly chattering people, all of whom were mostly men, Hikari noticed, with some annoyance and doubt - the few women there were, were accompanied by men, which of course made this young woman and her rather conspicuous. Indeed a few heads did turn to look at them. Hikari decided to ignore this. She didn't really have a clue what else one could do, never having been singled out for legs or for being a woman in this manner before. It was, she felt, quite ridiculous - but its absurdity did not make it less annoying or less unsettling.

The young woman with her seemed less bothered. Maybe this was because she had the cooler clothes, Hikari thought, irrationally but with all the determination of an adolescent who felt singled out for their appearance. She was going to buy new clothes and that was that.

As the young woman and the waiter talked, four men walked in, dressed on black uniforms. Printed on their left shoulders was a sign that Hikari could not make out quite clearly, embroidered in white so it stood out proudly against the darker material. It looked like some kind of four-legged beast, but she couldn't quite see what it was. Although she could not remember whether the soldiers on the mountain had been wearing the same uniform, she was reminded inexplicably of them, and of their dark-eyed commander. A chill of unease rippled through her...

* * *

"ARGH!" Keisuke dropped the book as though it had singed him and leaped up from his seat on the floor, much to everyone's surprise.

"… what's wrong, oniichan?" asked Miaka, standing up as well.

"I… look!" he said, pointing at the book.

As all five people peered at the book, the ink from the characters started to blur together to form a large blot, a darkness with a sort of fathomless depth.(2)

* * *

**Author's Ramblings: **WHAT? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CHAPTER ABOUT? I don't know, man, I swear I try to put down what I want to in succinct chapters, but every chapter spills into the next one. If you think THIS was weird, hang around for the next one (which is, as always, almost done). This chapter was supposed to only be about Hikari and Reishun, but that didn't quite make sense - it will make a little more sense in the next one, but it's all weird. Everything is weird. I've encountered the stage of novel writing where everything sucks, I think. Anyhow, thanks for sticking around for so long if you have and I hope you stay for the fiasco that is about to follow. (This was supposed to be a stress buster but that sort of did not work out.)

Footnotes (because I am a loser):

1. "Shichang" I think means market? Small market? You can blame google-translate for anything that's gone wrong there. :)

2. The blotting out of the characters is, yes, sort of like what happened in Eikouden, if you've watched it. But it's not exactly like that.

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	10. 09 Graves of the Forgotten

**Chapter Nine**

**Graves of the Forgotten  
****(Featuring: The Obligatory Restaurant Fight Scene)**

* * *

_In one of the stars, I shall be living.  
__In one of them, I shall be laughing.  
__And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night._

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery (in The Little Prince) ~

* * *

Silence fell over Yui's living room as everyone stared at the blotted characters in stunned shock. Even Nakago, who had developed quite a tendency to pass stupid remarks, did not have anything to say. Miaka crumpled to the floor beside the book, putting both hands beside it and squinting at it as though trying to make out the characters. Or perhaps she was trying to see through the book to her daughter. To her credit, though, she wasn't panicking openly. Yui knelt beside her and placed a hand on her back.

Alarmed by the silence, Hanako slipped her hand into Keisuke's, seeking reassurance. Instead, she found something quite different.

"Ink!" she said, drawing her hand away from his as he looked down at her head, still looking shocked. Her hand was smudged with black ink.

Blinking, he looked down at his own hands. "Ink," he had to agree, his hands totally blackened by the ink that was blotting out their only clue to what was happening with his neice. "What on earth is going on!" It was a useless demand and Keisuke knew it. It was even more useless to glare at Nakago as though he was singularly responsible for whatever was happening in the book, but he did so anyway. Damn foul Seiryuu Shichiseishi. What was he doing here anyway?

Hanako tugged at his hand again, perhaps to distract from his futile glaring, and he turned, infuriated. "WHAT?" he demanded, startling everyone, including himself.

"What do you mean, WHAT! Don't yell at me!" Hanako scowled. Keisuke, who was discovering a large number of strange things about himself, found himself wondering when he had become the kind of guy who took crap from a thirteen-year-old. "What happened to the book?"

"I don't know!" snapped Keisuke, frustrated as he had only been when Miaka had been going through her adventures and had Tasuki burn her stupid ribbon. Oh, he was quite romantic - he could see the idealim in that. He knew that as the heroine of the story, that was all she COULD have done. No decent person who was assigned to save the world could come back just because her stupid older brother was worried, right? But the stupid older brother would always wait - that was what he DID. If he had to be honest, even though he had hero-worshipped Tamahome when he'd popped into the real world, and cheered Suzaku on, he was not a hero at all, so much as the one who sat around and waited for people to come back home. "I don't know what happened - I can tell you that's not supposed to happen-"

"No, it is not," agreed Nakago, who was still sitting quite comfortably on Yui's couch.

"And YOU!" Keisuke turned on him, who appeared to be having a minor breakdown of a sort. "What are you supposed to be doing here anyway? If you have to protect the damn Shinzaho, just go do that, this isn't a bloody bedtime story!"

Hanako, in the meanwhile, looked at the adults around her and shook her head. Bending over the book wasn't going to help, really. And yelling at the one person who had come out of the book to protect the "Shinzaho of Seiryuu", whoever that was, was probably not going to help either. In the first place, it had no effect on the man at all. He sat there, arms crossed across his chest and a look of mild amusement on his face, while Yuuki-sensei stomped his feet like a child, red in the face. It was frustrating, but Hanako could sort of understand. He was worried about his niece and annoyed that he couldn't do anything about her predicament. Human emotions, really. Not a rocket science.

After a stare-down session with Nakago, Keisuke decided it may be more productive to stare at the book with his sister instead. As he stomped off, Hanako found that Nakago was looking at her intently. She had an inkling that no one quite liked him (subtle hints like Keisuke trying to kill the table with the tea mug had done the trick), but Hanako, being Hanako, decided she knew better and everyone could be cured with a hug and a bit of politeness.

Fortunately, she decided to try the latter first. "Excuse me," she said, the modicum of good behaviour, "but do you know what might be going on?"

"Not really," said Nakago, still staring unblinkingly.

Hanako cleared her throat. "Not even a little bit?"

"No."

"What do you think that means, if the ink starts blotting like that?"

"I couldn't really say."

"But you have an inkling?"

"Probably."

Hanako stared at him. Any impulse she may have had to give him a hug had taken a backseat to wanting to hit him with something. Not intimate with his past actions, though, the extent of the harsh things she thought about him amounted to, mostly, _Ugh! Boys!_ "Are you being deliberately unhelpful?"

"Yes."

"Right," said Hanako, tightly, turning her back on him firmly and walked back to the book, which was quite decidedly black.

"What do we do?" said Miaka, finally looking up, her eyes meeting Hanako's. Then she shook her head and leaned back against the couch, Yui's hand still on her back, and covered her face. "This is... this is terrible, isn't it, oniichan? It's really, really terrible."

The book remained unyieldingly black.

* * *

"Who are they?" Hikari asked her companion, watching the soldiers as they meandered through the customers of the restaurant, seemingly observing each table. They would climb up the stairs next and come to the first landing – it was a distressing thought.

"Soldiers," said the young woman, with some surprise in her voice. If she thought the strange girl in the odd clothing had something to do with this, she said nothing. "From Sairou. They've become a strangely common sight lately."

"Sairou," said Hikari, as her memory jolted a little. What had Chichiri said? "So that must be the white tig- um."

One of the soldiers had stopped and was looking directly at her. "Oh... oh... oh, is this bad?" she asked no one in particular, blinking. The next instant, she felt a light twinge against her chest, as though Nyan Nyan had pinched her. The man called to his comrades and pointed at her, and for a moment, four pairs of eyes focused on her legs. Nyan Nyan punched her in the chest.

"_OW_! Okay! It _is_ bad," Hikari concluded. "It's very bad. Um," she said, turning to look at the beautiful young woman before her as the men started to climb the stairs. What was she going to do! "You've been really nice, but I think I- um. Okay, bye!"

"Wait!" said the woman, urgently, grabbing at her, but Hikari had already stepped back. The men, coming up the stairs now, sped up. Alarmed, Hikari turned and bumped solidly into the waiter. Several bowls which he had miraculously managed on his single tray went flying as both Hikari and he tumbled to the ground with a total lack of grace. These bowls, of course, found their way to the heads of various patrons of the inn, and chaos erupted. Loudly.

"What the hell?"

"Oh my GOD!"

"BLOODY HELL!"

"DAMN WAITER!"

"YOU STUPID GIRL!"

"_GOT_ YOU!" This last proclamation was most significant, because it was made by a soldier who, while covered in soup, had managed to maneuver his way around screaming, furious patrons to grab Hikari by the scruff of her neck. "You've been a long way, Suzaku n-"

"Hey!" said someone, smartly, before the man was yanked back roughly and tossed - literally TOSSED - to the other side of the room, where he crashed through the wall and fell out with a horrendous yell.

An awed hush fell over the room. Everyone, including Hikari, slowly turned their stunned gazes from what was now a hole in the wall to the young woman standing in the middle of frozen chaos, patting her hands together as though to get the dirt off them. It was hard to tell whether it was this demonstration of pure strength that was more surprising, or the fact that the young woman was glowing determinedly red. One could almost hear the awestruck whispers of 'did you see that?' and 'she must be one of the seven warriors', except no one was really saying anything audibly, the strange sight keeping them quiet.

Strange and beautiful - and not just because the woman was beautiful, which of course she was. It seemed beautiful because, to Hikari, it was a strong and powerful reminder of something she basically knew, even if (confusingly) she had never known it. This odd thought lingered for a moment, while the woman looked at her. Hikari had the oddest, briefest sense of a connection – familiarity on a deep level – but then, as the woman gave her a wink, it was gone.

"Anyone else?" demanded the young woman, turning around so she had neatly placed herself in between Hikari and the three remaining soldiers from Sairou.

There was another moment of silence.

And then all hell broke loose.

Yelling people tried to run away, running in all directions. The soldiers of course tried to get at Hikari, and the young woman before her, but they couldn't because of the crowd, which moved in no direction in particular. Most people were probably trying to get to the stairs, but a few people appeared to be deliberately working against the soldiers. Someone picked the waiter's tray off the ground and smacked a soldier in the head with it.

"That's our cue!" yelled the young woman, over the din, in the wake of the _CLANG!_ that had resounded through the restaurant from this use of the tray.

"Wha-"

Hikari found her wrist grabbed, in the same vice-like grip as before. Then she was pulled along, through the crowd which was moving towards the soldiers - though they were probably just moving towards the stairs, Hikari thought. The young woman yanked at her arm, almost jerking it out of its socket as she _flung_ her at a window, cleanly through it onto the terrace on the other side. Without much to say about the matter, Hikari hit the terrace with her other shoulder and rolled... and rolled...

- and then rolled some more, until she realised that she wasn't really stopping rolling so much as she was just rolling along a slope with an end coming up quite abruptly - BLOODY HELL.

"_Aaaaaaarrr-_GH!" she concluded, as she rolled off the edge onto a not particularly soft or pleasant cart full of potatoes below.

"Kowaiineechan!" yelped Nyan Nyan, but before Hikari could answer, another incoherent yell sounded and something fell off the ledge. Hikari yelled again (a lot of noise) as the falling person hurtled towards her. Nyan Nyan popped out of her pocket as the young woman who had rescued her from the soldier crashed down beside her, thankfully, causing the death of many innocent potatoes.

For the moment, they lay there, winded and shocked. Overhead, they could hear pure chaos reigning in the restaurant. Several things were broke and a lot of people yelled and screamed. But no one followed their route out, and for the moment, it seemed as though they were safe. Stunned, in pain from the potato-shaped dents in their backs, but mostly safe.

Then, a tiny version of Nyan Nyan floated over their heads, peering at them through huge eyes. "Kowaiineechan okay?"

The young woman squinted. "What's that?"

"I wish I had a clue-"

"NYAN NYAN!" yelled Nyan Nyan, by way of introduction.

"She keeps making that noise."

"Nuriko-chaaaan!" cried the girl, clearly thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that she turned into an orb and ricocheted around the potato cart. "Nyan Nyan happy you here!"

Nuriko. Hikari blinked, Hanako's words from her "dream" coming back to her. Nuriko… wasn't that one of the Suzaku seishi. With some pain (killing potatoes by falling on them was a painful business) Hikari turned her head to look at the girl beside her, who was straightening up and stretching out. She was still glowing slightly, a subtle but very evident crimson glow about her. "You're a Suzaku Sei-"

"NYAN NYAN HAPPY YOU NOT GAY ANYMORE!" The orb came racing towards the young woman, popped into a fully grown (and yet very tiny) Nyan Nyan who tackled Nuriko with great hyper-excited glee. They both crashed into the potatoes, as Hikari blinked, surprised and very pleased that she wasn't at the receiving end of such violent affection.

"You're gay?" she asked, intrigued, looking at the young woman, who was patting the hyper child, looking surprised but not particularly overwhelmed. The question seemed to annoy her, though.

"No!" glared the young woman, almost too vehemently. "I mean, I don't know! Maybe! I was gay before, apparently, although I don't even know – that's just in my head, maybe! But I don't think that really covers it. It was very complicated!"

"Um," said Hikari, lost.

"Anyway!" declared the young woman. "Would it matter?"

"Nyan Nyan liiiikes Nuriko-chan!"

"Would what matter?" asked Hikari, who had lost track of the question and was trying to deal with raw potatoes in her hair now.

"Being gay! Being gay doesn't matter, does it? I mean I still like the same guy, so what if I wasn't a girl before?"

"You're a guy?" asked Hikari, genuinely surprised.

"_No_! Do I look like a guy!" demanded the young woman, looking so fierce and flustered that it would take a truly brave person to tell her she looked like a guy. And she didn't, really. She was so beautiful and her features were highly feminine. "I'm a _girl_! I _was_ a guy but I used to _pretend_ to be a girl, and now I'm a _girl_!"

Hikari stared for a minute as this failed to compute, and then shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she said, finally, speaking carefully as though she was afraid of another incoherent explanation. It seemed to be the right thing to say, though, which was a relief. It would be quite a pain to find a homophobic fool in ancient China. As if she didn't have enough to deal with. "Thank you for… throwing me out of the window there. I- I just- Um."

"Ooh, serious question," said the young woman, grinning at the small, dirty face of the thirteen-year-old and offering her another wink. It didn't take a genius to work out that Hikari was freaked out and did not belong to the admittedly unusual category of people who believed being thrust into a strange land in weird clothing and subjected to attacks by soldiers was a particularly fascinating experience. The grinning and winking was meant to let her know that she could lighten up. It was probably a mark of character that it didn't work at all, and Hikari remained as solemn as before.

"A- are you a Suzaku Seishi?"

The young woman tilted her head. Aside from that one burst of connection Reishun had felt while looking at her, after tossing that soldier away from her, she hadn't perceived much power or anything from her. But there was that voice in her being, the one called 'Nuriko', who seemed to recognise her - not as the priestess, certainly, but as someone important. If she hadn't been wearing the strange, short clothes she was wearing, Reishun would have thought the little girl was one of the reincarnated Seishi. She didn't know what the girl was, but she was here. The Seishi had been reborn for a purpose, and chances were, she was that purpose.

Alright, then. Apparently, it was time for introductions. No time for introductions better than when lying on one's back in a cart of potatoes.

"I- yes," she said, finally. "I'm Kou Reishun, one of the Suzaku warriors." She raised a hand to pull back her collar just a little, revealing a glowing symbol on her collarbone. "Nuriko. Well, kind of-"

"_Kind_ of?" asked Hikari, raising an eyebrow at her. Nyan Nyan tugged at her sleeve, but she ignored her for the moment "You're ... _glowing_."

Reishun down at herself and sighed. "Not the most subtle power," she agreed, sitting up again.

Nyan Nyan, loyal to the core, punched Hikari in the shoulder.

"Ow! WHAT?"

"Must move NOW, Kowaiineechan! Bad people coming!"

Something about those words made Hikari shiver as she looked at Nyan Nyan. "Right," she said, with more fierceness than she felt. "Let's go!" Nyan Nyan popped back into her orb form, as, with remarkable foresight, Hikari grabbed a potato. She still hadn't eaten all day and in the event that she did get out of this town, there would be no food around for miles. (Some people would have called this level of planning boring and slightly obsessive, but really, it was just good thinking.) A hand stretched out to her to help her off the cart, and Hikari looked up at Reishun.

"Look, Reishun-san. You- you don't have to come with me. I mean, I'm-"

"Oh, come on!" Reishun cut her off. She had two younger sisters back at home, after all; she knew exactly how awkward kids could get about stupid things. And that was all this person was, even if she had that... that touch of destiny, if you will: she was just a really awkward kid. And the best way to deal with awkward kids was to be brisk and down-to-earth with them. "I told you we should travel together, and nothing's changed." She took Hikari by the scruff of her neck as the soldier from Sairou had not five minutes ago and yanked her off the cart.

Then, she turned and started walking smartly down the path behind the inn, the gentle crimson glow from the orb that was Nyan Nyan lighting up the path just enough for them to see where they were going. Hikari had no choice but to follow, floored by this rather unthinking loyalty and valour. As they reached the edge of the builing, Reishun – Nuriko – paused and peered down the alley to where the bright lights of the market lit up the main street of the town. When she spotted no soldiers, Reishun nodded and they walked on.

"Do you have a name?" asked the older woman, presently.

"I- yes. It's Hikari. Sukunami Hikari." Hikari stopped, feeling both very awkward and very grateful, and therefore basically annoyed. Too much of one feeling was bad enough – to have two of those intense feelings was just too much. "Reishun-san," she said. "I … you shouldn't- This is going to be dangerous."

It was the first time she had even acknowledged the mess she was in, and the actual danger of it. Saying it with such definitive force was not as hard as she had thought it would be. It had no impact on Reishun either, who snorted. Really, it made the whole silent non-acceptance seem thoroughly silly.

"Even if we _weren't_ connected," said the older woman, , "I would do this for you. For anyone in Kounan, if they needed it. That's what being a Suzaku warrior means. I think. So don't get so awkward about it - it's not _you_." She smirked at the girl, indicating this was only teasing – even if it was true. "Now stop dawdling and _move_. She's probably right," she inclined her head towards the Nyan-Nyan-orb, "they will come after us. We made quite a mess in there."

"We?" asked Hikari, incredulously. As they set off down the path again, neither mentioned the darker implication of Nyan Nyan's warning.

"Did _I_ run into the waiter?" Reishun reminded her, looking at the chickens with some interest for a moment, before shaking her head and eyeing Hikari.

"No," agreed Hikari, "but you did create a new window for the restaurant."

"Ah, better ventilation," said Reishun, unrepentantly.

"Um," saisd Hikari and Reishun smiled slightly. Here came a serious question, she thought, and indeed, one did follow: "Reishun-san. What do you mean connected? You think we're connected?"

"You _don't_ think we're connected?" asked Reishun, tilting her head to look at Hikari, who swallowed as their eyes met again, and once more, she felt the force of the familiarity. "I don't know _how_ we are - you're obviously not a Suzaku Seishi-"

"Obviously?" demanded Hikari, slightly put off by this.

"Quite obviously," said Reishun, with the same teasing lilt to her voice. "I don't know. But we are connected - that much seems-"

Reishun stopped, in the middle of the path, placing a hand on Hikari's shoulder to make her stop moving as well.

Something was wrong. Reishun had sensed a strange chi while in the restaurant, but it hadn't been as strong as this. What was more troubling was that she could not locate it - as much as she could sense it. It seemed to be nowhere and everywhere all at once, like… or at least, not unlike a divine being, Reishun thought suddenly, uneasy though she simply narrowed her eyes. The shadow of a divine being, perhaps. There was an evil presence, but she couldn't really narrow it down. The fact that Nyan Nyan's glow dimmed suddenly was even more alarming. She took a look at Hikari, who was looking even more anxious than she felt, and shook herself mentally.

_Reishun no baka. Don't get carried away. _

"What is it?" asked Hikari, in a low, anxious tone. She reached for the Nyan Nyan orb and, as she touched it, it popped back into her breast pocket, almost as though the small being was seeking comfort.

Reishun scratched her head, and then shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we just move carefully."

Hikari nodded.

And thus, proceeding very carefully, they turned around the corner to walk into a small contingent of soldiers from Sairou.

"Oh b-" Hikari said something very rude.

Reishun raised an eyebrow despite herself.

And the captain of the contingent stepped forward and raised his sword. "CHARGE!" he yelled.

"Ah," said Reishun, grabbing Hikari's hand, "run!"

Pulling Hikari along – even though she didn't really need to, the girl was fast enough by herself (a burst of unusual speed, Hikari would later think, brought on by pure hysteria) – Reishun ran back into the alley with the potato cart. "_Here_," she said, pushing her bag at Hikari. "Just keep running!"

"What?" _This is really no time for heroic cliches!_ "What abou-"

But Reishun ignored her and turned to kick a small, makeshift chicken pen hard, so that it flew at the soldiers. It smacked one of the soldiers in the front in the face and caused great chaos and annoyance.

Reishun turned. "RUN!" she bellowed, and this time, Hikari complied.

The squwaking chickens and absolutely infuriated mother hen seemed to deter the soldiers somewhat. Enough, at least, for them to not realise that Reishun had stopped once again to lift up the whole (very ill-fated) cart of potatoes and throw it at them. Potatoes went flying, a harbinger of the cart. But it was just so unlikely and so non-tactical, the strategy of throwing heavy objects at a contingent, that this herald did nothing to warn them. The cart slammed into the front row of soldiers, who in turn fell against the second. The whole thing would have been comical, really, if there hadn't been a third row behind them, and a fourth and fifth and sixth behind them, all of whom were looking very, very annoyed about having been pelted with potatoes.

"Oh good," said Hikari, clutching the bag she had stolen from the cart with great fervour. "Now they're really annoyed. Well done."

"Y-eah, didn't think about that," said Reishun. It was instinctive to take the young girl's hand – the abstract connection between a Suzaku warrior and, though Reishun did not yet know it, the beast-god's sacred object.

They hurtled down the alley, even though, really, Reishun hadn't a clue where they were going to go. She wasn't really a trained warrior, even if she was a Seishi. She was a merchant's daughter, rich, prosperous and, though she was prone to a lot of physical exercise simply because she found she had a lot of energy, she had never really been given any instruction. Picking up and throwing things was something that came naturally to any girl who had grown up with a mother prone to using the crockery as a mode of expressing her anger towards her husband – and wasn't what you could call a battle strategy. She didn't _have_ a battle strategy. Her actions had so far been prompted by the "get the hell away from the angry men with the sword" rationale.

But _then_ what? she had to wonder as they ran, the soldiers behind them. There were horses in the market place, but you didn't just march up to a thriving market and grab a horses under the noses of the soldiers who were trying to kill or capture you – for whatever reason. How were they going to get out of here? Argh! Reishun did not approve of too many questions; she shoved all of this out of her head and ran, holding Hikari's hand very tightly.

But then, as they turned around another corner, Hikari stopped, gripping at her hand hard. "Stop!" she cried, urgently, and Reishun did, if only because of the urgency in the girl's voice. The next instant, though, as the soldiers came running, Reishun yanked Hikari's hand and placed herself between the soldiers and the girl. But the soldiers stopped too – and Reishun's blood chilled.

Then, the darkness grew thicker, and she _knew_. It was the presence she had felt before, right before them, though she could see nothing. She had only the brief impression of a huge, moving shadow and a trickle of anticipation that touched her mind. But this was no preparation.

Pain exploded, bright white light flashing behind her eyelids as she clenched them shut, a dance before the actual realisation of the pain crashed into. She stumbled, letting out a scream that even to her ears sounded inhuman. She fell to her hands and knees, biting down viciously on her lip – but it did not help. The pain went beyond her body somehow. It was as though someone had reached into her very being and ripped apart her connection with the most fundamental part of herself – a violation in a sense that was absolutely basic. She could hardly hear anything, even though her head was exploding with a terrible cacophony. Hikari seemed to be screaming something, and her arms came around her to hold her tightly, urgently. A warmth from Hikari's chest tried to touch her, but it didn't quite reach. The darkness grew thicker and thicker, and Hikari's arms were suddenly gone and she was alone, falling into what felt like an everlasting hell-

And then, suddenly and miraculously, it stopped.

Shaking violently, unspeakable horror crashing over her, Reishun looked up to find Hikari placed in between her and a tall man. The soldiers were now dim shapes all around them, holding back as their leader, who this man must be, stared down the thirteen-year-old. In the darkness, she could not see him, except that she could tell he was very tall, at least three feet taller than Hikari. His dark aura so powerful that it seemed to pervade the atmosphere, so thick that it was almost tangible.

Reishun shivered as she felt it crawl over her, like a many limbed being retracting its tentacles from her. As this happened, her perception became clearer, and the man no longer looked quite as tall, though his chi remained powerful, foreboding.

Hikari did not move, standing there looking grim and determined, her face white with fear and shock.

"Are you going to protect her?" asked the man, and his voice was like being dragged over pointed icy blades. "Enlighten me... a sacred object has no power of its own, and at any rate, you are not powerful at all."

Hikari said nothing, though Reishun could feel her shaking. She wanted to stand - oh, Suzaku, where was her _strength_? - or say something, but she could do nothing.

"If you get out of the way, I'll kill you both quickly and with less pain."

Hikari gripped Reishun's hand hard, somehow steady and warm. "Don't kill her," she said, in a shaky sort of voice. "She doesn't really have anything to do with it-"

The man laughed, and his cold laughter cut through the air, humourless and horrible.

"Are you trying to sacrifice yourself to save this woman?" said the voice, amused. "Or do you live under the misapprehension that just because you are protected as the sacred object, I can't kill you?"

He took a step forward, and the darkness seemed to move with him, eliminating the light from the stars and the lamps of the village that had, thus far, been their guide. He stepped forward again, and Reishun felt Hikari jolt, as though wanting to move back but holding herself in place through pure will. Her fear was so powerful that it reverberated down to Reishun, the thirteen-year-old held steady.

The man stared at her coldly for a long time. Moments passed by slowly, as though he was waiting for her to give in, but through some miraculous strength, Hikari did now. Then, he sneered.

"So be it," he said, and raised his hand. Reishun was sure, as she had never been, that this was the end.

But then Hikari yelled, "NOW!"

She threw something at the man – and for a moment Reishun thought she'd tossed the Nyan Nyan orb at him, but the potato fell down and rolled towards her. The man yelled – roared, the terrible cacophonous sound exploding everywhere as his fingers crackled.

Hikari ducked, or so it seemed, as the man burst into his terrible laughter again. It was a crucial moment before he realised she hadn't ducked out of terror.

She had dived for Reishun, grabbing the woman and pulling her into a tight embrace, just as a small, bright red light had flown from her. Reishun could do little more than stare, as Hikari gripped at her and yelled, "HOLD ON TO ME!"

Something exploded around them, a burst of warmth and power and flame, falling around the two of them so it formed a protective cage of a kind. The man's face contorted horribly and Reishun, who could not close her eyes, had the impression of him contoring into a monster and leaping at them, still roaring. But the protective shield grew brighter and brighter until Reishun felt her eyes sting. Hikari was clinging to her, and it was all she could do to cling back.

They heard a terrible yell, felt a sudden and inconceivably powerful jolt of darkness. But the brightness exploded, somehow around them and inside them at the same time. And they were yanked, into themselves and away.

Later, Reishun would think it was like hurtling along at a great speed into the space of one's own existence. It lasted for perhaps two seconds, but felt like an eternity in which they hurtled through an endless space that was matter and void all at the same time – an experience of pure motion and, somehow, transformation – until they were yanked back and tossed out of that experience, with a sort of cosmic pop.

It was a long time before Reishun could bring herself to open her eyes, and when she did, what she saw made her stare for several long moments in silence at the scene before her.

"Hikari?" she said, finally, to the younger girl who was still holding onto her, trembling. "Look."

It was several seconds before Hikari did, lifting her head.

The red light of the beast-god that had protected them continued to cascade around them, making her cheeks gleam with the testament of fear that she had not allowed to escape her before. There was no sign of the dark alleys of Shichang village or the soldiers who had surrounded them before, or of the terrifying, tall man with black fathomless eyes. They seemed to be in some kind of clearing in a forest, which was simultaneously the end of a narrow road. Tall trees surrounded them on all sides by the one leading down that narrow road towards the infinite darkness that reached for them threateningly.

A bright red orb floating over their heads, after a moment, said, "Kowaiineechan okay?"

But all of this wasn't surprising compared to the fact that, within the protective cage of light that surrounded them, they were not alone: four children stood before them, standing, somehow, between them and the darkness, even though they were all younger than Hikari.

Hikari didn't know _how_ she knew, but she knew, instinctively, that they were not alive. Perhaps it was the slight touch of a glow to their frames or the fact that they reminded her, in a strange way, of how Hanako had looked in her dream scape.

"Are we dreaming?" she asked, finally.

"No, Kowaiineechan," said the orb, floating around the scene. "Safe here. Phoenix-god said here safe!"

"Nyan Nyan..." It did not occur to Hikari to question this.

Hikari turned to look at the four children as the youngest of them turned and smiled. "Mei-chan okay!" she said, brightly.

Hikari turned to Reishun, who nodded, disentangling her limbs carefully from the younger girl's and cringing silently in pain. Whatever the terrifying commander had done certainly had lasting effects on her.

Hikari walked to the oldest of the children. Looking at him, she felt a strong tug of recognition, though it was different from the powerful connection between Reishun and her. "Who are you?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Don't worry, mei-chan," said the oldest boy, giving her a grim sort of smile. "We will watch over you. You are safe here."

"But where is this?" Hikari asked, looking at Reishun, but the Seishi was as confused as her.

The forest clearing was mostly even, plain, other than five small mounds, topped with small rocks. Burials, Hikari realised, looking at the children. But the boy had called her "mei-chan"... so was this...? Hikari opened her mouth to ask, but shook her head.

You did not tell the dead that they had been forgotten – there was something terribly cruel about that.

And they were not forgotten, Hikari thought, suddenly, a terrible sense of loss gripping at her, though she could hardly understand it. Surely, her parents would remember. They had just chosen not to tell her about their past, about the things that they had experienced to bring them close to one another. About where, in a sense, _she_ had come from.

"A long time ago, we were buried here," said the boy. "The beast god has called us to protect you, who are our family, for tonight."

"Mei-chan should rest now!" said the other boy, turning to look at her, the second youngest of the siblings. "Mei-chan has to go to the capital tomorrow morning!"

"It's not very far from here!" said the older girl, who sat next to the youngest sister. They were both smiling reassuringly.

Hikari nodded, dumbly. Are these ... my uncles and aunts? She walked back to Reishun, who patted her on the back but said nothing. Hikari was grateful, even if the silence came from Reishun's painful experience. She felt as though she had been stretched beyond her capabilities, and did not want to talk. She wanted to listen, though, and almost thought of begging the children for their story. How had they come to be here? What had happened to them? They were related to her, and she knew it - and though she had never been a domestic or family-type person, she felt the strong calling to know her own past. But she did not ask.

Instead, she sat beside their graves in silence with the older woman, watching the gentle glow of Suzaku's protection around them, the silhouettes of the ghosts of her unspoken past, standing as sentinels between them and the threatening darkness.

And several hours later, once the light of the dawn chased away the night, they vanished.

**

* * *

Author's Notes:** I hope that's not too much to digest in one chapter (I thought it WAS too much to digest in one chapter, so this is actually just the latter half of chapter eight). If you think that creepy man is turning up in too many places at the same time, you're not wrong. He's also beginning to freak me out. Also, the last bit - very odd? How did Hikari become all powerful and cool? o_O

I just... I mean I know Miaka was supposed to be Taka's last memory jewel thing, but there was none for his family and such - I don't think that means they weren't remembered, but I don't know. If anyone does, let me know!

"Mei-chan": I don't know if that's what a niece would be called, but I hope it is? "Mei" does mean "niece".

Thank you for sticking with me!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**


	11. 10 Seishi Gossip

**Chapter Ten **

**Seishi Gossip**

* * *

Chichiri was lost.

Clouds gathered ominously overhead, touching the tips of the mountains that guarded the center of the universe of the four gods. They swirled lazily, almost playfully if not for the low, rumbling threats they were making. It reminded him of a terrible afternoon many years ago, which has caused the Shoryuu river to overflood and destroy everything in its path. How had he found his way to Taikyoku-zan after that? Several years later, wandering, just like this, he'd been guided to the right place.

So why couldn't he find it now? But Taikyoku eluded him persistently, despite his meditations. Several long, steadying breaths were now more a necessity to calm himself down, rather than to channel his chi. He had been walking for ever so long now. It took a lot to wear down a monk, who had, it could be mentioned, trained by a particularly good teacher. But days of walking around in circles could wear down any mortal being, and Chichiri, for all his powers and training, was eventually only mortal.

Maybe the universe was trying to tell him that his time was over, now. His life had come and passed and his powers were obsolete.

He walked with a shadow growing darker over his head. It did nothing more than to hover, but he sometimes had the sense that it was following him deliberately. Sometimes, he felt like it was watching him, but if there was a dark presence, it had embedded itself in everything, so Chichiri could not distinguish between the shadows and his own darker mood, the persistent sense of immense failure and the impression that he was, somehow, missing something.

For the thirteenth night in a row, or so it seemed, he sat down, exhausted from his efforts, and sought, grimly, the source of his own stability. The mountains that guarded the center of the universe remained unyielding, unhelpful as though they perceived his presence as an offence or an attack. Frustrated and deeply alarmed, he put his hands in his face and allowed the depression to take over him.

Why couldn't he remember his way? And more importantly, why couldn't he remember where he had already looked? He had the strongest suspicion that he was going around in circles, but could do nothing to break out of it. It was frustrating and very strange. And yet, it was not these thoughts that came to his mind as he sat, but memories from very long ago - before there was a priestess of Suzaku in Kounan, before he had come to understand his abilities as Chichiri... before everything, when there was only his friend, his lover and him and nothing could have gone wrong.

The clouds over his head grew darker as he slipped into another exhausted dream, in which he wandered, lost and unable to find his way to where he knew he needed to be.

* * *

"Commander Jiang?"

The commander opened his eyes to find his faithful Lien peering in through his tent, where he sat alone. The monk would have to wait, it seemed. So deep in his mind he had been that Lien, of all potatoes, had surprised him. "What is it?"

"The northern spy has returned," said Lien, stolidly. There was something about a short stocky beareded man that was inherently comforting. Lien had looked exactly the same for the last nine years. If there was anything interesting about him, then Commander Jiang knew nothing of it. A nice bloke to have around, even if Jiang wouldn't have batted an eyelid at sacrificing him for the greater purpose.

"Successfully, I hope?" asked the commander, his black eyes gleaming.

"Yes, sir."

"How fortunate," he said, allowing himself a small smirk. "We just had the other tent cleaned after all." He spared Lien the effort of coming up with an appropriate answer to that, nodded. "Bring him in. With his findings." And for the next minute or so, Jiang entertained himself with musing over what Lien's response could have been. Probably something to do with soap and how all things, including tents, dried quickly in the desert. Thus, the commander really needn't worry about the tent. Lien was ever so helpful.

The northern spy entered and bowed swiftly. It had been four years since he had laid his eyes on the man, a small fellow unlike the southern spy that had coloured the larger and more comfortable tent. There wasn't anything terribly interesting about him either, other than his proficiency.

"Did you find it?" asked Jiang, after a moment's silence.

"Yes, commander," the man said, reaching into his robes and bringing out a small package, wrapped in sackcloth. "It was found at Touran, with an old woman who believed she was the descendent of one of the Genbu seishi."

"I hope you have cleared your path," said Jiang, reaching for the package.

"Yes, commander. I have heard that there is another in the easternmost part of Kutou," he added, as Jiang unfolded the sackcloth. "The barbarian country - the northern tribes speak of an invasion a long time ago, in which much was looted. This scroll is said to be the last copy."

The object within the wraps shuddered palpably with energy, perhaps trying to get away from Jiang. It was interesting, almost sweet really, as the last ditch attempt of the small scroll to save itself. Of course, it had greater power, so he took the threat seriously. There was a reason why Mt. Taikyoku eluded the monk, even in his dreams. Of course, Jiang believed that a person could be broken, and when broken, they dragged themselves to a place called home - wherever they were safe. The monk would break, and once he broke, he would lead him to the place where the soul of the book lay hidden.

"You have done well," said Jiang, holding the scroll in a hand. "You may rest for two days. Then, you must leave for the barbarian land."

The man bowed. Over the next day, Jiang would have him investigated of course. If he breathed a word of the book or of hesitation, he would assign someone else the task and take care of this spy as he had the last one. "You may leave now."

As the man departed, Jiang returned to his seat, looking at the scroll as though considering it. It would be destroyed once he reached Arudo, the capital of Sairou, which was about a day away now. How would it feel he wondered, looking at the the scroll, to be one of the first secret transcripts of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, and one of the last.

* * *

Reishun awoke because she was too warm; the sun was a quarter of its way up the sky. She squinted at it as she sat up, feeling as though something was weird. It took her a moment to realise that it was the lack of pain in her body. When she had fallen asleep - though she hadn't a clear sense of when she'd closed her eyes and slipped into the land of oblivion - she had been in a lot of pain, physical as well as... something weirdly different and deeper. And she had been terribly cold despite the warmth of the spirits' protection.

But she felt fine now - pain-free, well-rested and really too warm. Someone had covered her with the wrap she'd been carrying in her bag at some point of time in the night - probably a thirteen-year-old someone who was presently... not here. Nor was Nyan Nyan or the four children.

Five muted mounds, that were their graves, lay silently resting next to her. Reishun tilted her head, eyeing them with a combined sense of gratitude, camaraderie and sorrow. Sorrow which she could not quite understand, but which she believed had to do with 'Nuriko', just like many other inexplicable things she sometimes felt. The memories had been so vividly clear until she'd grown up a little. They had then faded into dreams, and thoughts, and now they were just passing notions and reminders that she couldn't ever put a finger on. If there had been a previous life, then to her it was like a distant dream - and like all dreams that one tried to remember, it danced out of her grasp.

This place... something about it, made Nuriko terribly sad and terribly determined at the same time. But she was also both of those things - sad, because of the fact that these graves would lie here, and determined because now she was indebted to the children to not forget. A part of her did not want to remember; she had always wanted very strongly to look ahead. Wasn't that the point, after all? But she was here for a reason, and she had survived the night before for a reason... it was just another duality that she could live with

After a long while of watching the silent graves, she inclined her head, a half-smile on her face. "Arigatou," she said, quietly.

Then, firmly moving ahead, she looked around. Other than the graves, she appeared to be completely alone, but she wasn't terribly worried. The night of rest had done her a world of good, and she was ready to take on the day - which meant finding Hikari and Nyan Nyan, working out what was going on between them, why there was a strange girl from a foreign land in the country when the priestess had already been here and returned to her own world, working out how to avoid the darker powers that had attacked them, finding their way to Eiyou and hopefully finding something to eat on the way. If that sounded like a lot to handle, she didn't let it bother her.

She had always been the kind of girl who greeted the morning with exclamation points. It was a new day! They could do anything! No problem!

And indeed, as she got to her feet and stretched out, the first of her obstacles removed itself with a loud "NYAN! Nuriko-chaaan!" The tiny girl floated at around the level of Reishun's head, beaming. "No hurt now! Nyan Nyan fix everything!"

"Hello!" greeted Reishun, with equal enthusiasm and exclamation points. "And you did! Thank you, that was very kind of you! Where is Hikari!"

"There, see?"

Reishun turned to squint at the slightly darker area of the forest. Indeed, there was a small figure in there, looking downcast and furious even from the distance. "Is she okay?"

"Kowaiineechan sad! She want.. want," Nyan Nyan looked troubled, but attempted a sincere pronunciation: "Cough-fee? Nyan Nyan not know Cough-fee!"

She looked so distraught that Reishun patted her on the head, which apparently made her so happy that she floated up and danced around Reishun's head.

_Awww!_ thought Reishun, instantly in love with the cute girl.

Nyan Nyan appeared to be the answer to the overwhelmingly powerful desire that kids should just stop growing at their cutest (and least annoying). "Reishun will check!" she said, determinedly, folding the wrap carefully and putting it in her bag (a little timely tidiness could save a lot of time!). "By the way," she said, picking up the bag and turned to look at the floating girl, "How did you know about... Nuriko?" Her voice was slightly hesitant, uncharacteristic for the girl who had given that restaurant a new window (poor owners, she thought, not very sincerely).

"You are Nuriko!" said Nyan Nyan, as though this was explanation.

"Okay," she said, after a moment. Since this threatened to open a veritable Pandora's Box of the Serious Questions that Reishun believed life was better off without, Reishun left it that. For the moment, anyway. "Right," she said, once her bag was Let's go get the whiny kid! We have a long way to go!"

The whiny kid, it transpired, was basically just very cranky and very hungry. Hikari was not the kind of girl who greeted a new day with exclamation points unless there was a substantial amount of coffee involved, and the fact that there were powerful, evil people trying to kill her had substantially dampened her mood. Not really wanting to talk about the latter, she whined instead about the coffee.

Reishun, who was being patient and cheerful, asked what coffee was, and in response, Hikari told her that this stupid country was doomed to eternal sorrow (which wasn't, when you thought about it, any kind of response at all). Reishun inquired about the source of this intuition, and Hikari scowled and proceeded to Be Very Uncommunicative And Sulk. At this point, Reishun took a hold of her by the scruff of her neck and marched her off firmly, despite loud and childish protests ("Let me go! I'm not a child! I don't want to go there! I don't care what happens! Leave me alone, I don't have to go with you - I don't even know you!") in the direction that Nyan Nyan said there was a village.

Nyan Nyan called it 'Hakukou', which turned out to be an extremely small village, so evidently poor that it seemed like a shame to ask anyone for food. But they had to eat. Hikari, at least, had not eaten in about a day, and though the cribbing was slightly annoying, Reishun knew it came from general desperation and hunger. Not to mention that, if she had put the wrap on Reishun, she herself must have been cold all night.

Reishun left Hikari just outside the village with Nyan Nyan, who insisted on trying to work out what 'coffee' was precisely. They didn't need to attract any more attention with her clothes, really, though the village was alarmingly quiet and lacking too many people to look at her in the first place.

An old woman who sold her fish at a ridiculously low price (Reishun tripled this because she couldn't bear the idea of cheating an old woman; it was still less than what it would have cost in a city) told her most ominously that this was because the 'men from the western country' had whisked all the young people away as conscripts and that there were spies everywhere, and perhaps it would be better for a young beautiful girl like herself to settle down and get married to her grandson instead. Reishun politely declined, but noted the information about the soldiers from Sairou anyway. She could not blame her for disliking the soldiers from Sairou; her own experience with them last night still made her shiver. This village, like others, seemed to have suffered at their hands.

With a low bow and an "Arigatou gozaimashita, obaasan!", Reishun walked back to where Hikari was.

Apparently, her attempts at trying to tell Nyan Nyan to stop bringing her new kinds of grasses (because none of that would make coffee) had failed entirely. The ground before her was strewn with all kinds of herbs, and both Hikari and Nyan Nyan were sulking by the time Reishun returned. Despite the horrors of the previous night, this scene made her grin.

"What the hell are you grinning about, Reishun?" demanded Hikari, crabbily.

"Nothing at all. What happened here?" asked Reishun, deeply amused. But because Hikari looked dangerously close to bursting into tears of pure frustration, she raised her hands, "Okay, okay, we've got breakfast."

The fish cooked quite quickly once the fire was lit (of course, this only took about half an hour of Reishun and Hikari butting heads about the most efficient way to light a fire and hating their respective childhoods for never having prepared them for this); it was eaten in about half as much time as it took to cook, mostly in a graceless, famished manner by Hikari. They washed it down by water from a stream nearby, and the world seemed less forbidding.

In brighter spirits, they set off for Eiyou. Maybe it was because they were better fed, or that they had one another for company, or because the capital really wasn't very far away ("Just half a day of walking!" Nyan Nyan informed them.). They did not walk on the road if they could avoid it, choosing the thicker cover of the forest of either side of the road instead. They did not go in too deep either, of course; neither Hikari nor Reishun were feeling particularly fond of the dark at the moment, even though no one really brought it up.

"I really," said Hikari, after a little while had passed, speaking in the manner of a serious confession, "really want to acquire some different clothes. I wouldn't look so out of place." Of course, she felt out of place in anything she wore, but that was a different matter altogether.

"I wish you were taller," said Reishun, who was a solid six inches taller than Hikari. "Then I could just have loaned you my clothes." But both of them voted against this, because the discomfort of the short skirt was far outweighed by the logistical impediments a too-long skirt. It would be less than impressive if, while attempting to run away from another lot of Sairou soldiers, she tripped over and fell.

After a minute, Reishun spoke again, in a more serious tone. "So, I should ask you - how did we land up there? You know, last night?"

Hikari looked at her and then at forest through which they were walking. Her typically serious expression returned. Reishun had to bite her tongue to tell her off for being so solemn. She had good reason, after all; she had been thrust into an adventure and no one had asked her about it. Of course, no one had asked Reishun either - but she felt she did have a choice. Everyone had a destiny, but you could choose to embrace it or not. Hikari did have a choice too, really - she could of course just choose to sit on the side of the road and do nothing. But she wasn't doing that, to her credit, despite being very far from home and very confused. Reishun longed to ask her about that, but that would probably not help with her mood. So she simply refrained, for the moment, from spanking a decent mood into her whether she liked it or not. It was generous on her part because she was not what anyone could really call a patient woman.

"I- it was Nyan Nyan," said Hikari, finally, looking at the child who had chosen to walk hand-in-hand with Reishun this time. She seemed most terribly fond of Reishun, and insisted on calling her 'Nuriko-chan!' "You couldn't hear her, could you? I don't know how she did it, but she was talking to me - in my head. That's actually how I found her," Hikari added, frowning and looking at Nyan Nyan, who grinned brightly. "She said she could take us to a safe place if that... man was distracted enough. So I threw the potato at him - which I suppose was surprising enough to do the trick? I don't imagine anyone has thrown a potato at the likes of him..."

"Well, potatoes do present a certain tactical advantage," said Reishun, with a small smile that Hikari did not mirror.

"It could have gone horribly wrong," she said, after a moment, shaking her head. "It was so..." She looked at Reishun, troubled. "It felt so dark - like something really ... evil was surrounding him."

Reishun nodded. She remembered the same sense. "But it _didn't _go wrong," she reminded Hikari.

"But it could have have - and it did, Reishun. What he did to you was... I _told _you coming with me was a bad idea."

There was no easy response to this. Reishun didn't quite know what to tell her - that it wasn't a matter of choice? That she would protect her even if it meant getting hurt, or worse? She had a strong desire to live, but oddly, the need to protect Hikari was stronger.

"Kowaiineechan was brave!" Nyan Nyan spoke up. "She _very _afraid - Nyan Nyan could feel, but she didn't move! Kowaiineechan like Miaka-san!"

The name was like a jolt to Reishun's memories, a huge tug to the back of her brain. "Miaka-?"

"How do you know my mother?" Hikari cut her off, turning to Nyan Nyan, red in the face from the unexpected praise.

"Your mother was here?" asked Reishun, surprised.

"Miaka-san is the priestess of Suzaku! Nyan Nyan met and fixed many times! Miaka-san very nice! Not scary, like Kowaiineechan. You knewww,"said Nyan Nyan, tugging at Reishun's hand. "Nuriko-san loves Miaka very much! You know her." .

"You know her?" asked Hikari, tilting her head at Reishun, who bit her lip, looking away. There was a certain greed in the thirteen-year-old's eyes, the desire for knowledge of this part of her parents' lives - her own life - that she seemed to know so little about it. Reishun looked at her and felt more than twinge of sympathy. Had she not herself needed to know the past?

"I... well, I- no," she said, and had the somewhat unpleasant experience of watching Hikari's face fall. "I mean, it's _complicated_. I ... am, I suppose, one of the Suzaku seven - but I'm not the first?" she ventured, not quite sure of her own words for once. "In simple terms, one of the Suzaku seishi who died fighting against the Seiryuu seishi and Kutou's invasion, was reborn as ... well, me. It sounds strange, I know."

"I fell through a book to get here," said Hikari, flatly. "Last night, we were teleported by a small child to a place where dead spirits of my uncles and aunts from my father's previous life took care of us. You're not the weirdest thing around, really."

Reishun grinned. "I mean okay. I think I do remember some of it. It used to be very clear, but now I've... forgotten. I don't know why. But some of her- his life-"

"Nuriko was gay!" announced Nyan Nyan, sincerely.

"I- MAYBE," glowered Reishun. "I don't know! Like I said, it was complicated! I think he-" She resisted the urge to bang her head against a tempting looking oak. "Well, see. Nuriko- he was, as a girl, in love with the emperor-"

"Hotohori-sama!" supplied Nyan Nyan, sounding very happy.

"As a girl," stated Hikari, and Reishun couldn't quite make out if the edge to her voice was amusement or doubt of Reishun's own sanity.

"Yes, well, he - pretended to be a girl, for about half his life, because he thought... He thought it would bring back his sister. She died, and ... I guess he didn't deal very well with it. Towards the end, though, I think he ... he didn't quite know. He thought he was in love with-" Reishun looked at Hikari, and cleared her throat. "A woman, but I don't know - I think he was confused. I personally think he was always more in love with Hotohori..."

Nyan Nyan bounced. "He was beautiful too! But very sad!" she gossiped. "Hotohori-sama die before he see son! Hotohori-sama and Houki-sama only got a month together! That's why Hotohori-sama's soul went to Eiyou too-"

"Waitwait- _wait_!" said Hikari, stopping and looking at Nyan Nyan. "This Hotohori-sama person was a Suzaku warrior too and he died?"

"Hai!"

"And now he's been reborn?"

"Hai! Nuriko-chan knows!"

Hikari shook her head to force all of this information to fall into the right spaces in her head and make sense. "He- she- you know?" she turned to Reishun, who was looking rather sheepish.

"Yes," she said, and Hikari could swear she turned just a little more pink than she should have under the sun. "I know."

"You know the ... reborn Hotohori."

"Mm hmm."

Hikari raised an eyebrow. Although nothing in this world made any sense to her, she recognised this well enough. "Ha!" she said, decisively. "You're in love with him."

Reishun went red.

"Ohhhh... Of course! _That's _why you're going to the capital! Wow, I _am_ a genius," she blinked, genuinely pleased for the first time since she'd dropped into the book. More details fell into place in her head, like a really terrible and cheesy epic love story laying out the whole plot in the introductory chapter. "But you- oh, that's why it's complicated. He's got that - son and wife from..."

Reishun grimaced as Hikari reached the confusing crux of the crisis (disguised as it would be in a cheesy love story as an alliteration).

"...his past life. Oh, that's _terrible_," Hikari concluded, with (mostly) genuine sympathy. "That's really terrible. Actually, I don't know who that's more terrible for, because he's probably really stuck and torn in between his past life, with everyone growing older - and his son?"

"Boushin-sama!" supplied Nyan Nyan, most helpfully, as Reishun's grimace became darker. "Emperor now!"

"Wow, his son must obviously be older than him - that's really odd. _Man_." Hikari breathed out. Reishun was determinedly not looking at her. This, for some reason made her grin. "I feel kind of better," she announced to Nyan Nyan, who was still bouncing.

"You don't have too many friends in your world, did you?" muttered Reishun, grumpily.

"No," said Hikari, amused (though that was probably something to think about). "Just Hanako, actually, and she falls in love all the time - I have experience in dealing with friends who're in love." And in making fun of them mercilessly. The fact that she had somehow accepted Reishun as a friend enough to mention it so casually in a conversation did not go unnoticed. But pleased with the somewhat girly gossip session this was, she pressed Reishun, "So does he know about you?"

"Yes," said Reishun, still oddly grumpy, "he knows about me."

"Does he know about the great-love-from-a-previous-life thing?"

"It's not that cheesy! And yes!"

"Wow, you told him," said Hikari, nodding along, "and?"

"And nothing. He left for the capital because he wanted to work out his duties about four years ago and hasn't been home since then."

"Don't look like that! He's just... undecided."

"... Undecided?"

"Yes, I think he's... I don't know!" said Reishun, clearly frustrated. "He's just not very clear, but he has to be now, because ... because, argh, if he doesn't make up his mind, I'm going to have to marry this stupid man! I mean he's a nice man, but he's about as interesting as a cart of potatoes. Can you imagine conversing with a cart of potatoes for the rest of your life?"

"Why!" asked Hikari, genuinely troubled by this. Talk about living in the stone age! She had visions of Reishun's horrible parents trying to force her into a marriage she didn't want to, of a terrible quarrel which ended with her father locking her in her room and leaving her with no choice - it was all very tragic and Hikari's deeply feministic leanings made her an instant supporter of the poor bride. "Why do you have to marry him!

Reishun looked troubled. "Ahem," she said, delicately, "because I said I would..."

"Oh th-" Hikari shook her head. "What?"

"I was very annoyed," explained Reishin. "It was only a few days back. It's been a while since Eian's last reply to my letters, and four years since he left for the capital, and it wasn't... he wasn't decided. But he sort of has to marry me now because- well, he will," she finished, sounding almost defiant. "We are meant to be together, I'm sure of it!"

"Does he know that?" asked Hikari, raising an eyebrow and biting back her desire to point out the deeply obvious. You didn't go around telling people they were being stupid about the alleged loves of their lives, and she didn't know if she knew Reishun well enough to make such serious statements about her love life. Plus, maybe she wasn't being an entire fool (though this, to the down-to-earth Hikari whose favourite pastime was to poke the air out of Hanako's ludicrous fantasies, seemed fantastically improbable) - how was she to know?

But Hanako's many "loves" had taught her that the sort of boy worth going after at all was the sort who... at least had the decency to write back every month. She could, abstractly, understand this... Eian or Hotohori or whatever his name was, but two or three years of being furious with each of Hanako's stupid crushes had made her unusually good at instantly loathing anyone could, even accidentally, stomp over her over-eager friend's hearts. Apparently adolescent angst transcended space and time.

"Of course not. That's why I have to go the capital," said Reishun, firmly, and then stopped, tilting her head.

A sound from the road interrupted this exchange - the harmonious rhythmic sound of a cart of potatoes being pulled along steadily by a couple of merry asses. With great hope, Hikari stopped, tugging at Reishun's sleeve. "Maybe we could hitch a ride?"

"What if it's someone-" Reishun cut the worried and cautious exclamation off at the sight of the driver. It was desperately kind and extremely poor looking old man who sat quite oblivious to the rest of the world, behind the merry asses. She shook her head at herself; too much paranoia was never a good thing. "Let s go, then," she agreed, and they made their way out to the road.

* * *

The symbols on the book began to return, but because everyone was busy freaking out, it was several minutes before they noticed it.

It had taken Miaka fifteen minutes of deep breathing and a cup of very strong tea (because tea was the Yuuki family's traditional answer to all things, of course). Once this was done, she spent several minutes in a verbal battle with Keisuke about the possibilities of why this was happening. They weren't fighting, really - Hanako knew that; they were merely discussing things at the top of their lungs. And they thus discussed the possibility of dynastic changes and a loss of script, the faulty system in the National Library, the demerits of cellotaping a book as old as this one, someone calld Einosuke Okuda's mental state and the probability of a long-term Nyan Nyan rebellion.

Hanako did the wise the thing and stayed out of it, watching the book earnestly, while ignoring Nakago, who was looking quite pleased. Whether this was simply because of the attention or because he actually knew something, it was impossible to tell.

Only Yui sat silently, watching the scene with a twisted expression no one noticed. There was indeed something profoundly converse about the situation, in which Miaka was yelling at Nakago, effectively begging him for assistance, or any kind of sign, really, and Nakago was, well, not trying to kill her or hurt her. Who would have believed this was possible? Certainly not Yui. But then again, for a while, Yui had never believed that it was possible for there to be any kind of peace between Miaka and her. Now there wasn't just peace, but life and hope and ... the definitive plan of a clear and happy future.

Maybe that was what, she thought, Nakago had been reflecting on. They had lacked this - all of them. All, but Amiboshi, who had wished fervently to be a Suzaku warrior instead.

She opened her mouth to say something, finally, but this, too, went unnoticed because at this point, the thirteen-year-old stepped on Keisuke's foot and thrust the book in his face. "LOOK!" she yelled, and everyone - Yui included - looked.

The ink had cleared up

"But... but it's all clear now!" cried Miaka, not sure whether she should be crying out of relief or laughing out of pure hysteria. She settled for a weird combination of the two as Keisuke, with a voice only slightly unsteady with relief, read out,

"'And in the bright morning, the Lady Hikari and the reincarnation of Nuriko, Reishun, left Hakukou village for the capital of Kounan. It had been a long and tedious night, but the two travellers had regained most of their wellbeing and all their spirits through the effort of Nyan Nyan and the spirits of the Sou family-' What? I... don't understand. Wasn't that Tak- Tamahome's village and family?"

Keisuke flipped through through to the previous pages, but it stopped right where they had stopped reading - when Hikari and Reishun had been in the restaurant and the soldiers had walked in. And although things had moved at a slower pace than he remembered so far, it was not half an hour later and the book had moved to the next afternoon. Leaving behind, in between, a blotch of darkness. "It doesn't say anything about what happened in between," he said, looking at Miaka. Then, perceiving that his sister was about to burst into tears, he changed his stance, "But it's alright! At least it's back." For the moment, he added mentally.

"The book could not print what happened with them," said Miaka, ignoring his attempts to not alarm her. There was every reason to panic, really. What had happened? What could happen? What if something terrible happened to her daughter while they couldn't read?

Silence fell once more, a tense sort of silence that indicated that everyone wanted to say something - something loud and express, even if it wasn't something in a known language. It was, eventually, Yui who broke the silence - perhaps out of years of experience of putting into words the completely incoherent. It probably had something to with the investment banking.

"Nakago," she said, finally turning to her Seishi, speaking firmly. "Do you know what has happened?"

Hanako started to roll her eyes at the idea that this smarmy looking man was going to respond to such a quiet, earnest, firm sort of plea. But she paused, eyeing the man, whose expression had altered only very slightly. Triumph, in a way, though the thirteen-year-old could not understand that. Something appeared to have passed between Yui and Nakago, nonetheless, because the general inclined his head slightly as confirmation.

"Of course," said Keisuke, through gritted teeth. "He'll speak only when Yui speaks to him - no offense, Yui-chan - and until then he shall sit there and remain determinedly unhelpful. Great."

If this affected Nakago in any manner, he did not make any show of it. Hanako did roll her eyes now. Yuuki-sensei was really a bit of an idiot, she thought. She could wholly empathise with his sentiments, of course; her friend was missing and this person wasn't going out of his way to help - it basically was the most foul thing he could have done, in her book. But snapping like that wasn't making any difference. She had learned from her younger siblings that if someone was being persistently childish and attention-seeking, the best idea was usually to ignore them until they burst. Alternatively, three days later, you could lock them in the bathroom until they promised to behave themselves. Nakago, however, did not need to be locked in the bathroom.

"Do you remember," he said, finally, looking directly at Yui, who looked steadily back, "that story your servant in Kutou had told you - in the first week of your stay with us?" His emphasis was deliberate, which made no sense to Hanako, though the people around her bristled with angry energy. Apparently, he had brought up something he should not have. But Yui baffled her more, for she sat there, extremely calmly, not looking away though the piercing blue of his eyes couldn't have been particularly comfortable. "The story," he continued, calmly, "of the black dragon and the nine-headed beast?"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** ... nothing to say! Except maybe SORRY about all the cheesy jokes - I wish I could say I couldn't have helped it, but I probably could have. The last chapter was just too tense and gave me jitters, so a little stupidity felt necessary (to me - I don't know if anyone else would agree!). Stay tuned!

Oh, ALSO: a mysterious force reading through this can be thanked for the gradual removal of typoes. Arigatou!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	12. 11 An Ancient Tale

**Chapter Eleven **

**An Ancient Tale**

* * *

_"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." _

~ J.R.R. Tolkien ~

* * *

It was a really stupid question.

Sixteen years ago, wounded and heartsick, Yui had found herself unable to sleep. What if, when she slept, the men who had hurt her returned, faceless terrors that she would carry with herself - she believed - for the rest of her life? What if she could not escape this time? The fear of darker dreams kept her awake - for days, which turned into weeks.

Her one source of comfort was, as the general of two-thirds of a whole army, not really a consistent source of comfort. But she was well taken care of. Every morning, she would lie in bed and pretend not to notice the serving girls who cleaned her room, brought back her clothes freshly washed, and left her food that she could not touch. They never said anything, as though afraid that she would lash out at them and have them penalised for speaking, and the silence grew terribly oppressive.

She was trapped in a book, surrounded by insignificant characters who did not talk.

One night, when it did finally become too unpleasant to tolerate, she ventured out of her room with an older lady servant, who did not regard her with as much suspicion as the others. They walked for a long time, until finally the old woman asked her if she wanted to hear a story. It was the first time someone had asked her if she wanted something, in that stupid universe. Yui agreed, and listened to the tall tales she had regarded then as stupid myths. But so steady and calming was the old woman's voice, that for the first time that night, she had slept.

After that, it became a ritual - every night, until the day that Miaka travelled to Kutou with the intention of rescuing her, Yui and the old woman would go for a walk, and she would be initiated into a world that children in Kutou had learned to surrender their dreams to. And so, she had learned to sleep again. Of course she remembered.

"Of course I remember," said Yui, steadily, although she was seething at the casual reminder of her past. The past that Nakago had, in many ways, invented for her, through the illusion that she had been assaulted in the most brutal way possible. He had let her live with that lie because he had wanted to take over Kutou himself. It wasn't, really, the nicest thing a person could have done, and although she had gone through it in her mind a thousand times to come to terms with what had happened, what he had done to her and what she had inflicted on so many people, she retained some of that anger.

Hadn't she built a whole new life? Hadn't she already faced her demons to overcome them? She had a husband and a child now - and here he was again. It took an effort to remain calm and remember that she had to do this. If anything like this was to happen to Jun-chan, her son, she wouldn't have a clue what to do. So, for Miaka, she would stay calm and talk to Nakago, even though his blue eyes pierced through her and made her feel as naked and vulnerable she had been when he had "rescued" her.

"But what does that have to do with this? It's just a story, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Nakago, "in the same way as the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho is just a story."

"What does that mean?" demanded Keisuke, sounding frustrated. "What is this story?"

Nakago spared him a glance and then looked back at Yui, waiting for her to begin. Yui stared. "You're serious," she said, surprised. "That wasn't even the best of her stories..."

* * *

By the time they arrived at Eiyou, it was very late in the day and the large lamps that decorated the city's streets had already been lit, even though the sky was still tainted with red from the setting sun. The cart took them all the way to the market, though Reishun and Hikari jumped off just before it entered the busiest part of the city. (The desperately kind and extremely poor looking old man turned out to be less innocuous than he looked; not only did he charge them - a ridiculous amount of money, Hikari felt - for the ride, he spent a dangerous amount of time looking over his shoulder at them. Hikari discovered that letcherous, foul-minded nincompoops also transcended space and time.)

Eiyou was not huge by any standard that was familiar to Hikari, whose idea of a big city involved a lot more space and considerable altitude. The tallest building here was the shrine that towered over the rest of the city at the southern end, looking at which made her uncomfortable. Reishun informed her that it was the shrine of Suzaku, and the idea filled her with a sort of nervous awkwardness, as though she was looking at her principal's office. She couldn't really say that out loud either, because her principal was a fairly unpleasant man and Hikari didn't believe that comparing the god she was evidently meant to serve with a man like that was likely to be taken as particularly reverent. The sight of it was alarming, decisive and highly... final, somehow.

So much so that it was a minute before Hikari noticed the palace right beside it. This too was enormous, even though Hikari felt that it had been designed less as a defensive structure and more as one that was, well, pretty. And it was. Pretty, huge and intimidating. Hikari gawked at it, mouth falling open as she did.

"We're supposed to go THERE?" she yelped, just as Reishun grabbed her arm and yanked her into one of the smaller streets. "How are we supposed to go there? Are we going to simply walk into the place and introduce ourselves? I don't think that will work!"

"You're going to grey hair if you don't stop worrying that much," said Reishun, sounding amused. Then, catching the look of deep non-amusement on Hikari's face, she shook her head, "Relax - I'll ask Eian and we can ask him how to go about getting an audience with Houki-sama."

"Okay," said Hikari, because this sounded mostly reasonable. "But why are we walking in the opposite direction?"

"Well, as important as secrecy is at the moment," said Reishun, "you can't go there looking like that. We're going to buy you some clothes. I know this place - I've been here before. Hopefully it's not too late in the day..."

The place turned out to be a merchant's shop, one of the more prosperous looking shops in the city and not like the stalls on the market street. Hikari spent most of her time looking at the place worrying about whether they had enough money to afford clothing from a place like this, but Reishun did not appear to be terribly bothered - but then again, Hikari was often too worried to notice other people worrying. Reishun knocked, and as the sounds of movement were heard, nodded. "Not too late, at least - good evening," she said, to the middle-aged woman who opened the door. "Do you still sell clothes here? My parents brought me here a few years back."

The woman nodded. "Yes, it is - please come in." Hikari hung back as she did, the nervousness that being around Reishun for a day or so had washed out of her returning in the presence of a stranger. Even though this stranger was, in fact, not very threatening. She wasn't very tall, about an inch taller than Hikari, and comfortably plump so her face was gentle and rounded. She did look shocked at Hikari's clothing, which in turn made the thirteen year old turn very red, but neither of them commented on it. "It has been a while since someone in that kind of clothing came to this country," said the woman, in reverent tones. When Hikari looked alarmed, she shook her head. "You do not need to worry - our family is loyal to the beast-gods and the Shijintenchisho. I would not betray you."

At a bit of a loss, Hikari nodded. She was beginning to have an inkling about this place, as she had about the village in the morning. Not an unpleasant sense, but one of familiarity and safety, which made no sense to her. How could you sense something like that? She had never placed any face in he idea of intuition, but here she was, intuitively more comfortable here than she had been in Shichang village.

"I know that there are people in this country at the moment who would wish to harm you. I am Li Fen," she finished, bowing low. (1)

"I am Kou Reishun," said Reishun, bowing as well. Hikari followed suit, less gracefully, as she introduced her as well. "And this is Hikari. As you can see, her clothes are a small problem."

"Yes," agreed the woman, looking critically at the short school skirt. "It's the legs, really. What do you have in mind, Hikari-sama?"

Hikari panicked. Hikari-sama? Had this stranger asked her a question? Did this mean she had to TALK? Oh dear. Oh. "Um!" she said, and then cringed as Reishun snickered. "I- er, I have no- I don't even- something black?"

* * *

Yui remembered very clearly.

_Once upon a time, _the old lady had said, and Yui had rolled her eyes and wondered: Was she a child? Did she believe that every stupid story needed to start that way? Anyway, wasn't this ancient China? Why was she starting the story like a Grimm's brother fairytale?

But she said nothing, and the old lady went on.

And now, looking at Nakago with some confusion now, she narrated the story:

_"Once upon a time, a great god in the heavens was blessed with a son. But although he was the son of a great god, through his own mischief and wrong-doing, he became degraded to a lowly status. Proud though he was, he served as a menial worker in the heavens, where no one would love him._

_"His only friend was of a great beauty but terrible sins, unknown, neither man nor woman, who had become so fallen that none even glanced at him. (2) Yet, having served in the heavens for many thousands of years, the unknown eunuch had become learned, and had designs for his own ambitions. The fallen son of the god fell in with this bad company._

_"There came a time when all the lands were suffering from a terrible drought. The proud and fallen son believed that through a manipulation of the rivers, that were not under his jurisdiction at all, he could save the lands. Through a clever design, the eunuch and the fallen son contrived against the god of rain, causing his downfall from the heavens above. The drought grew even more terrible as the rain god fell, and for many years, the people suffered. With the rain god's newfound power, the fallen son took on the shape of the rain god's dragon._

_"But because he had acquired these powers by terrible deeds, he became a black dragon, unable to change his shape at will. Unlike the rain god's beautiful dragon, who had no horns and no ill-will, this beast was ugly and evil._

_"The great god that was his father banished him from the heavens, and in a fury, the black dragon caused a terrible flood to sweep over the lands, killing thousands and destroying everything that stood in its path. Furious, his father battled with him and won, returning to the heavens victorious. Reaching the heavens once more, he sought out the menial eunuch and cut his soul into nine different pieces, scattering them all over the land with a curse that would forever separate them._

_"The black dragon became insane with rage over this punishment to his only friend, but he was too weak to do take his revenge. He slunk away into the dark waters and dwells there now, travelling the lands in search of his friend's soul-pieces. It is said that every time a river floods over, it is because the black dragon has been reunited with one fragment of the tortured soul. (3)_

"And the flood waters were supposed to be his rage," Yui finished, quietly. Silence followed the folktale and Yui frowned. That hadn't been her favourite story, honestly; it was confusing and strange, and there was something unnecessary about a story where people did not live happily ever after. In fact, she remembered feeling as let down then as she did now, by the ambiguous and mostly unpleasant ending.

"So what?" asked Keisuke, finally. "Are you saying that's what is happening? Some psychotic dragon is trying to take over the universe of the four gods?"

Nakago did not answer this, to Keisuke's frustration. He sat there silently, while Keisuke considered the merits of talking to a large boulder over attempting a decent conversation with this strange spirit. "Like I said," he said, finally, "the universe of the four gods, the book, is the link, and the link is what keeps that world alive. Someone is trying to destroy that book-"

"But the book is here," said Miaka, frowning.

"Yes, but it's power is fading, isn't it? If any creature could block the book's records in that manner... then the book may well be dying."

"Dying?" demanded Miaka, getting up, horrified. "Dying? But Taiitsukun-"

"Isn't it true," said Nakago, turning to look at Hanako, "that that travelling monk could not find Mt. Taikyoku? As though it is blocked to him? Only the dead or the chosen may reach that place - and I myself have been there only once, after it was all over. But I could not sense it anymore. It is as though the mountain has closed itself off. Or perhaps," he added, ominously ambiguous, "it has been closed off."

"So you came here instead?" asked Keisuke, as Miaka began to pace. "How did you come here?"

"When the Shinzaho is in danger, it attracts the seishi - why do you think your daugher is still alive, Suzaku no Miko?" Miaka clenched her fists, biting her lip, and continued to pace. "Two days ago, in the book's time anyway, the Shinzaho of Seiryuu was removed from its place by a thief."

"And it came here?" demanded Keisuke.

"Keisuke-san," Yui said, finally. "No, of course. What he means is half of the Shinzaho was removed from its place, wherever that was. The other half was always here... that is why he is here." She could not bear to look at Keisuke and Miaka, so she did not, believing that the accusation in their eyes would be too much to bear. She had known and said nothing? She had brought back half the Shinzaho and left the space between the worlds open? "I didn't know that I had half... until he came here. I only guessed."

"Quite right, Yui-sama." The triumph was back on Nakago's face, subtle and understated, but palpable. As though something about making her open up the secrets she had never wished to have in the first place made him feel victorious. If Yui hadn't known that her hand would go right through him, she would have smacked him. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to take it out."

Yui glared at him. Then, with a jerk, she yanked the chain she was wearing around her neck off. The pendant gleamed in the afternoon's sunlight streaming in through the window. It was a beautiful pendant, one that Miaka had often admired - a tear-drop shaped blue stone that Yui had owned for the last twenty years (though sixteen years ago, its pair had gone "missing"). Looking at it very closely now, Miaka realised that it's hoop, which the delicate chain went through, was actually a earring hook - twisted around so it looked like a pendant.

"Yui," she said, but Yui would still not look at her.

"But I don't understand!" interrupted Hanako, suddenly, standing up. "I don't understand why you made her tell us that story or why ... well, I don't understand a lot, but what do you mean about that story? Are those the people who are trying to take over the universe of the four gods?"

Ack! she fought back the urge to hide began Keisuke agan, because Nakago turned to look at her now and she wanted to be anywhere but here. Horrible bulllying man.

"The truth is, young bearer of the book, that I do not know." He tilted his head and looked back at the earring. "But if it was me, I would want revenge."

"Of course you would," said Miaka, snapping hysterically, "You're the guy who tried to become a god for revenge."

"And the black dragon would already sort of be a god," Nakago pointed out, calmly. "Isn't that troubling?"

"You PSYCHOPATH!" yelled Miaka, picking up the first available thing and throwing it at him. It was a pretty blue vase, which sailed right through him and smashed into the wall behind him, right next to a five-year-old Jun's grinning face.

Yui cringed. That was an expensive vase.

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM ABOUT IT!" hollered Miaka, as Nakago smirked. "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU? DON'T ANSWER THAT!" She turned very abruptly away from Nakago, looking at Hanako. "Your uniform! I want your uniform! We have to try to bring her back!"

* * *

Hikari hated new clothes and shopping, and there was very good reason for it: it was because she possessed a body that was somehow either too big, too small or just plainly awkward and hideous, and nothing designed for normal people would ever fit her. Of course, she knew, on some very deep level that would surface with growing maturity, that it had very little to do with the clothes and a lot more to do with her own perception. Somehow what looked graceful and elegant on Reishun felt awkwrd and unattractive on her, even though it was better than the skirt that had caused so much random trouble.

It was silly to compare herself with Reishun, and she knew that was true as well. She knew she wasn't ever going to be as beautiful as Reishun, or even Hanako, who was exuberant and attractive (though the latter was because of the former, which was something Hikari would possibly never realise). But she wasn't ugly really. It was just something she felt when she had been made to try on fifteen different outfits, all of which were uncomfortable and felt as though they had been designed for someone much thinner and more capable of staying on their feet.

By her calculations it had been several hours (though it had been perhaps forty five minutes) of Li Fen and Reishun telling her she look 'SO cute' and then adding 'but' or 'however' or 'you know', followed by suggestions about colours and frills. Hikari tried to explain the concepts of jeans and punk to them, and this did not go too well. Li Fen brought out a quill and a scroll, expecting Hikari to be able to draw, which Hikari failed at in addition to breaking the quill. Bordering on tears of frustration (why couldn't she be coordinated at least in ONE stupid world), she explained that she wanted something she could move around in, without frills and which was black. They settled, after a remarkable negotiation at varying volumes, upon "men's clothing" - which at least had trousers, and which reminded her of Chinese martial arts film costumes in exactly two respects: for one, the shoes, which were a lot more comfortable, and for two, the belt, which was Sairou's clever secret strategy of murdering her.

"Stop fiddling with that," said Reishun, an edge of impatience to her voice. "You look good!"

Hikari gave her a miserable sort of look. "Uh huh," she said, tugging uncomfortably at the belt. "It's trying to kill me."

"Yes, but you appear to be angering it - stop tugging at it!"

"I want jeans! I have a tummy! People with tummies never wear belts!"

"Everyone has a tummy!"

"But I have a BIG tummy," aaid Hikari, woefully poking at her not particularly big tummy.

Reishun looked at her critically. Admittedly, there was a small baby-fat-related paunch involved, and she was taking a while to mould it into more interesting flesh, but she wasn't Santa Claus. As Reishun hadn't ever heard of Santa Claus, she couldn't have told her this. Instead, she poked her tummy as well, making Hikari stumble back and fall.

Hikari stared at her, truly aggrieved.

"Oops, sorry," said Reishun, not sounding very apologetic, holding out her hand and nearly yanking Hikari's arm out of its socket as she pulled her up.

"Ow! Okay, stop helping me!"

"Stop _complaining_!" wailed Reishun, finally exasperated. "My god, it's like you're eight four years old. My grandmother's about eighty-six and even she's more optimistic than you are."

Hikari gawked. "Are you kidding? Are you the one who got thrown into a book without-"

"Oh whine-whine," said Reishun. "You don't want to do this? Just don't do it. I don't care. Sit here and whine about it, that's going to be very productive. I," she added, tapping Hikari on the nose gently (so her whole head snapped back), "am going to see the Empress."

With that, she turned and marched away smartly, nose in the air, leaving Hikari to stare after her in something like shock. Which was odd because she had been wanting to tell Reishun to stop being so nice and helping her out, because she would be in added danger for no reason. But that wasn't why she'd walked away, was it? She'd walked away because she, Hikari, was whining. And somehow, Hikari felt quite embarrassed, ashamed and chastised. Nyan Nyan was poking her in the chest to make her move and she sighed. "Stop it, I am moving," she told the tiny girl, who was tucked away in the folds of the rough (and strong) cloth they had exchanged. Then, rubbing her nose, she trudged after Reishun.

"Sorry," she snapped, catching up with the woman, not sounding apologetic at all.

"Fine," snapped Reishun, just as sincerely.

They trudged on in silence through the tree-lined streets, lit only by the light of the moon and the few lamps bobbing along with citizens who crossed by the street, not looking at them. It appeared as though the soldier from Sairou had not yet reached this place - certainly there was no aura of infinite darkness. There was just a sense of impending doom, but that, Hikari knew, had to do with the fact that she didn't just have to meet new people, she had to meet a freaking Empress (and her son, who was the Emperor) and converse with them about being a Shinzaho.

Still scowling, she looked at Reishun. "Apparently," she said, almost conversationally, but in a lower voice, "I am the Shinzaho of Suzaku."

"You're-" Reishun stopped. "Are you really I thought that was supposed to be an object."

"I don't know, but that's what Chichiri said," said Hikari. She was not sure why she was telling Reishun this, when she had been specifically instructed not to. She wasn't even sure why it was making her feel better, but it did somehow do the trick.

"Chichiri... he's a Su..." Reishun bit her lip and looked around.

Hikari nodded. "He said.. well, he told our little friend that I should only tell Houki-sama. I suppose this is because she knows something, or it is a safe place. Then he... he left and he didn't come back, so I don't know what happened to him. There were soldiers on the mountain too."

The cool breeze the signalled the onslaught of the colder night blew through the streets as they stood there for a moment, processing. Then, without saying anything, they turned and walked down the length of the road towards the palace. Hikari found that she was unsure, now that she had spoken, about the merits of burdening Reishun with the additional information. She wanted to say more, of course - about Chichiri, whom she had tried not to worry about, and about the fact that she didn't know what being a Shinzaho meant. But more than that, now, she wanted to tell Reishun not to come with her. Maybe it was better for her and Nyan Nyan to go in alone, or separately at any rate.

But before she could frame the words to say this, they were at the gates of the palace. Hunger and nervousness, probably, combined to give her a steadily growing stomach ache as she looked at the building. It was huge bigger when you were right in front of it, and appeared to be looking down at her with interest and disdain. 'What is this strange creature? Why does it have a huge Santa-Claus-like tummy?' it seemed to say. Hikari smacked her forehead and rubbed her face. If a building started to talk to her, then it probably meant that she was going completely mad.

Reishun introduced herself to the guard (adding that Hikari was her younger sister) and asked for Shu Eian on an urgent basis, and the soldier nodded, running off to get him. They were to wait, and in this while, Hikari looked around starting to feel nauseous. Her eyes fell on the looming structure to the side of the palace, the shrine of Suzaku, and the terrible nervousness grew into nausea. Her hands and feet were cold and the breeze, which had seemed pleasant a while back, was troubling her somehow.

"Are you alright?" A hand placed on her shoulder made her look up and nod.

"Yeah, just... feels like a maths exam, you know?"

"I... sure?" Reishun patted her (very, very carefully this time, to make sure she didn't fall over). She was looking alarmingly pale, as though she was terrified of the palace. "It'll be alright, you know? It's not any kind of exam. And I'm with you, see?"

Hikari nodded, dumbly, but the nausea just seemed to take over. Indigestion? But she hadn't eaten since the fish in the morning, or maybe that was the problem. A warmth against her stomach told her that Nyan Nyan was trying to help, but she felt so terrible all of a sudden. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. Really, even if the empress was a terrible lady, she did not need to be worried. Forcing herself to stop feeling as - in colloquial and effective terminology - icky, she glanced up.

Then, she frowned. Why were there five fully armed soldiers coming towards them?

She opened her mouth to ask Reishun why, but found that her throat was suddenly very dry. The nausea seemed to explode into frigid air because Hikari was suddenly very cold. She tried to reach for Reishun, but instead tumbled. No one seemed to realise this, though everyone was beginning to yell loudly. Somewhere in her head, Hikari made a note to be annoyed about this when she started to feel better. But as a seeping darkness crawled over her, she wondered for the first time if this wasn't just cold, or nausea, but something else, reaching for her.

Terribly alarmed, she took another step forward. Reishun was yelling, and it sounded sort of like, "Y_ou can't put us in prison_!" But her voice was very distant.

Hikari, not quite comprehending, stumbled forward, reaching for Reishun's shoulder. The young woman turned and caught her as she fell - but the world crashed to total darkness, and Hikari knew nothing.

* * *

**Author's Ramblings:** Where are Tasuki and Taka? What about Chichiri? They're still around, but do remember, it has only been a couple of days. I thought Taka and Tasuki would take that long at least to travel. More on that soon. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned! :)

ALSO! Thank you to the Mysterious Bunny Friend, who is still reading and telling me about typos. Your motivating me (and the promise of nagging for more chapters) is AWESOME and keeps me going, so - much gratitude and cookies!

Aaaaand, reviews are a GOOD thing. *puppy eyes!*

**Notes:**  
(1) Li Fen is a chinese name meaning "clever and fragrant like flowers" (from 20000 names dot com). This isn't significant - but I wanted to mention that this is a Chinese name and hasn't been translated, obviously, because the writer ...wouldn't have a clue how to! The manga does have everyone's names in Chinese (so Chou Ryuuen is Tiao Liu Juan, and Kounan is actually Hong-nan, Kutou is Qu-dong, etc.), which of course makes sense because this is ancient China. But since I'm more familiar with the Japanese versions, that's what I use - but it seemed more sensible to use a Chinese name for that late. Just wanted to mention this.

(2) The fact that this menial servant is a eunuch does not reflect the author's bias against inter-gendered persons. I have no such bias and the fact that this person/creature is a eunuch isn't intended to be an offense. It's just a story - you can even look at it as a sort of comment on discrimination if you like (I certainly do). I've always thought that Fushigi Yuugi (and indeed, many of Yuu Watase's works) reflect both the genuine ambiguity that surrounds notions of gender and also the status of alternative sexualities at different times in history (Shigi in FY:GK, for instance, Tamatama from Yukiyasha-den - Nuriko, for that matter, who was not biologically of two genders but certainly confused, to say the least about it - I think it goes deeper. Also Suzaku, who is neither man nor woman, did you know?).

((I guess this is a good place to include a **!WARNING!** that _sexual ambiguity _is definitely an _underlying _theme for parts of this story - although it's certainly not the focus. So if that bothers you, don't read. I don't mean to be offensive, but this fic is not going to be homophobe-friendly at all. NOT that I have anything explicit planned - nor can I write explicit stuff without making an ass of myself - but do be warned. Sort of. Anyway.))

(3) This story is a dramatised and exaggerated version of different legends. Or maybe one legend and different interpretations. I don't want to tell you which one, but you're free to guess, if you like, though I won't confirm anything until the end anyway (not giving up the element of surprise, yo! Or maybe it's not that surprising, who knows!).

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	13. 12 State of InBetween

**Chapter Twelve **

**State of In-Between**

* * *

_I am not I._  
_I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,_  
_whom at times I manage to visit,_  
_and whom at other times I forget;_  
_the one who remains silent while I talk,_  
_the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,_  
_the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,_  
_the one who will remain standing when I die._

~ Juan Ramon Jimenez ("I Am Not I") (1) ~

* * *

The book said:

_'The Suzaku warriors Nuriko and the Lady Hikari were escorted to the dungeons of Kounan's imperial palace by the hefty guards. Here, they were imprisoned, locked and left to wither away while the Emperor, Boushin-sama, decided what to do with them. They did not know that the name that they had provided at the gate was now a loathed name, the name of a traitor...'_

Unfortunately, in the wake of the somewhat loud negotiations that followed Miaka's pronouncement, about uniforms, nobody really looked at the book. No one, except Nakago, even realised that there was something happening in the book. But because Nakago was not terrifically concerned (or possibly, Sukunami Miaka's yelling was disturbing even to a spirit that had slumbered restfully for fifteen years), he did not pay it much heed.

This was annoying. The book had been incredibly patient, especially for an ancient and powerful scroll which should not have had to be patient. It should have been respected by those who had been charged with it, but that it was not respected did not surprise it either, which was wise and knew that this particular lot of mortals was not prone to great respect of ancient things, or even, really, their mothers, and if they had been dealt a solid spanking while growing up, things would have been largely different.

Indeed, the book had lived longer than the fools in Kajiwara Yui's living room, or its current, profoundly slow-moving protagonists (who had, the book noted with annoyance, managed to get captured and were now sweating it out like a couple of simple-minded idiots in the dungeons of Kounan's imperial palace), and due to its longevity and wisdom, it had a profoundly different view on how time passed. In fact, being a book, it wasn't particularly bothered about time on the outside. Time on the inside was the life of the book, of course.

Yet, despite this insulting behaviour, the book had thus far been helpful. Admittedly, this was to rescue its own spine (and to get rid of the unseemly cellotape). Barring the single episode that it had failed to observe - which, frankly, had freaked it out as much as it had the people reading it - it had functioned with great perseverance and all the fortitude of an ancient magical scroll (copy). Not to mention that, although the Suzaku no Miko had not been its favourite protagonist, it had quite enjoyed her company, and she seemed to have instinctive understanding of the book's feelings. It wasn't difficult to help her out either, unlike the Seiryuu no Miko - helping _her _out was like dragging a particularly bitchy blind man across the street against his will while he hit you repeatedly with a heavy object.

But this faith in the Miko was to be deeply shaken in the next instant. Having acquired Hikari's uniform, which she was clutching to her chest, Miaka picked up the book and began to yell at it.

"Okay, come on! Give her _BACK_!"

The book tried to explain that she was in prison and probably about to executed by the darker forces governing Kounan, but Suzaku's priestess was beside herself. It was probably just as well; most people didn't take too kindly to being informed that their daughters were in life-threatening danger.

"HIKARI!" she yelled, gripping the book very hard and straining its already strained spine. "HIKARIIIII!"

This greatly annoyed the book, which decided that it had, finally, had enough. It jerked and decided to yell right back, in a manner of ... writing. All it wanted was the give her a bit of a cosmic slap, really, not unlike the cosmic slap it had given Hikari, when she'd decided to cram it into a locker in that hideous (and mildly smelly) brown handbag. It was an old book and you didn't DO that to an old book. Nor did you pull and yell at it. Not when the book had come to you for help. But even the book, who was indeed all-knowing (almost), could not have anticipated the fury of the woman gripping it so horrendously.

The opening of its own limited power, which it usually used to attract attention (or with the assistance of one or another god), somehow went terribly out of control. The force of the Suzaku no Miko's power pushed against it, and the book pushed back, now somewhat alarmed. She wasn't supposed to get in there! There were laws! There were _consequences_! But before any of this could somehow be communicated to her, the crimson fury exploded, casting back furniture and assorted human beings.

Whether the fury came from Miaka or the book itself was dubious. The book felt something it recognised well - the twisted tug of fate, it would have called it, with more befitting alliteration (everything serious needed alliteration) - and it found itself flying, and falling through the air, just as the Suzaku no Miko fell through the dimensions. And as the book landed on the floor of the Kajiwara living room, Sukunami Miaka landed on her own rear end on the floor of the house of a clothes' merchant in the Eiyou.

* * *

A distant voice seemed to be calling her name - a voice that was very familiar, but so very terribly far away that after about a minute of trying, Hikari gave up on trying to comprehend it.

Abandoning her best friend, logic, she turned to the only way to make sense of her present disposition, and felt mildly annoyed. Hikari did not like to imagine. Imagination was like opening a floodgate and allowing the deluge to destroy everything in its path. As a child, she had been plagued with dreams that she could never understand - dreams of vivid colours and books that had to be read, but somehow continually ran away from her. Perhaps once she had believed that these dreams and stories were exciting adventures, but they were not always adventurous and did not always have happy endings. As she grew older, she began to realise that this was because they mirrored 'real life' too much, and real life was something of an armpit.

But some dreams had to be dreamed - and that was not something she could control either. The ugly brown handbag had to be found, the book had to be opened, and she had to be in this universe. Although in waking life she could not quite deal with this, she could be aware of it now, in the place where she had landed without quite knowing how. And, without knowing how she was aware of this being in this here, she knew it was another place she somehow had to be.

Perhaps, she thought, the logical functions in her brain had finally short-circuited from the complete weirdness of her adventures so far, and she had, in the manner of their computer at home, just shut down without any warning.

It wasn't terrible. Neither horrendous nausea nor unspeakable terror, nor yet the strange sense of disaster that had given her the final push when she'd lost consciousness, had followed her to this place... this state of delusion or consciousness or _liminality _or whatever-it-was.

The voice called out again, more urgently this time, but it was even more distant, falling away it seemed. Hikari listened carefully but the voice faded away and left behind complete silence. Something about this was alarming to her. A sense of overwhelming conclusiveness grasped at her - as though something was reaching, with great inevitability, its end, and it was not pleasant. She was, after all, thirteen. Even if she was an unusually cynical sort of thirteen-year-old, her life ought to have been only about possibilities. Indeed, even in the strange world, all she had experienced were possibilities - in the very least, she had not experienced the sense of Impossibility. This fleeting conclusiveness and inevitability... she found that she really did not like it.

She shifted - and felt something slip out of her - because she had a nagging sensation, as though someone was looking at her very pointedly, waiting to be noticed.

Hikari opened her eyes and it was an awkward sort of awakening - for she remained in between sleep and wakefulness. This did not surprise her, though, like imagination, it bothered her. Hanako had told her once, when Hikari had confessed in low, secretive undertones that she was prone to such awakenings, that it happened to everyone at some point or another and that she didn't need to give herself that much importance. But Hikari suspected that the kind of clarity that greeted her in this state of liminality, as it were, was not as common. Not because she could see, very clearly, the things that were around her, but because she could see also that which normally wasn't evident. It was a unique clarity that belonged to this in-between.

So it didn't particularly surprise her when she 'awoke' now to find that she was sitting while her body lay behind her, her head in Reishun's lap while the older girl pressed her hand against Hikari's forehead, looking ludicrously worried for a person who had seemed completely unaffected by most things. They were apparently inside some kind of extremely ill-lit prison cell. It was a dungeon, of course. They were in an ancient palace and ancient palaces had dungeons. This wasn't surprising, or that under Reishun's shirt, she could sense her Seishi-symbol and knew what it was, without ever having seen it before. Nor, indeed, was it surprising that although Nyan Nyan was hidden from view, snuggled in Reishun's hand in her tiny orb form, she could see her pink aura. As Hikari tilted her head towards her, the pink glowed warmly for a second, and then retracted.

What _was _surprising, however, was the very small boy standing on the other side of the bars, glowing powerfully golden, and watching her intently.

As she looked at him, his face burst into a hugely affectionate grin, as though he was ever so happy to see her.

"Um," said Hikari, and then raised an eyebrow and just looked. He was a very small boy - smaller, she thought, than a newborn baby (but she was wrong; she had never seen a newborn baby). He wasn't a new born baby, certainly - they weren't known for their luminiscence. He looked slighly familiar and, if not old (in fact he looked quite new, fresh - she was reminded of freshly baked cookied) then sort of ... eternal, with eyes that she felt were too old for a newborn baby (or any baby, at that).

A golden boy so innocent (though not innocuous) and beautiful that he could have been made purely out of laughter and hope. It was the kind of thing that usually drove her crazy, really. Hanako was a glorious example of this version of delusional insanity. Life was not laughter and hopes; in fact, Hikari being Hikari compared life to a grand variety of unseemy things. People who were that optimistic always made her suspicious and annoyed; and she wanted, really, very much, to be suspicious and annoyed by this intrusion into her unwoken reality. But instead, she found that she felt warmed, motivated and filled to the brim with lovely feelings. Confidence, security and something like cookies. So she was still awkward, of course, but she was awkward with cookies! It was a remarkably different state, though it did nothing for her verbal skills.

"Hi," she said, finally, blinking.

"Well, hello!" he said, and his voice was warm, and crinkly, somehow. In a way, it reminded her of crumpets. "You look well, Suzaku's child."

"Thank you," she said, probably because when she had been in kindergarten, her parents had taught her how to say 'please' and 'thank you' and the former didn't quite fit at the moment. "I mean," she amended, "...you too. I- I mean, maybe- well, hello." How could _anyone _be so awkward that they were actually awkward in their own head? But then, was this her own head at all? _Argh_. Hikari smacked herself in the forehead and found that though she did not feel the impact at all, this made her feel mildly better.

The boy did not appear to mind or even notice that this was weird behaviour. He beamed and the golden glow about him increased.

"Come!" he said, and turned to walk away.

More intrigued than she was disconcerted, Hikari stood up, leaving behind Reishun and Nyan Nyan (and herself), and walked to the bars. She walked only because it seemed to be the most natural way for her to move, though her feet did not tangibly meet the floor. She tentatively touched the bars and found that her hand went right through. She could sort of sense the bars but they seemed utterly irrelevant.

With a slight thrill, Hikari walked through the bars. The boy appeared to have walked down the corridor to her right, up the stairs and out of sight. In between her and the steps, though, were two obnoxiously large guards, both of whom did not seem to notice her or the boy, leaving her free to make a very rude gesture as she walked past them. Grinning, she made her way up the stairs to find the boy waiting at the top, also looking amused.

"They are like a basket of potatoes," he said, somewhat imperiously, but very amused. "Not an interesting thought between the two of them - but I'm sure they taste very nice with salt."

Hikari let out a snicker, surprising herself. Then she shook her head and gave in, and laughed, feeling surprisingly safe. The boy looked at her for a moment and then, with what was only a _slightly _shy gesture, reached for her hand. She took his hand and instantly felt inexplicably warmed. Hanako would never believe it! And Hikari did not believe it either, but what was more interesting was that all of a sudden, she was filled with the optimistic hope - no, the knowledge - of a future in which she would sit with Hanako and tell her all about this little boy and how he had filled her with hope. A future that was surely unrealistic given that she was presently in prison in a strange country inside a book. But with this child holding her hand, she could believe it.

They walked through the narrow corridor hwich opened into a courtyard, lit by the blanket of bright stars, twinkling in quite a friendly manner, really - almost warm in a way that stars were normally not. She was reminded of pleasant and warm things, like tea and buttered toast and crackling logs of wood in a bonfire. _Are the stars always this bright in this place? _Hikari allowed herself a minute to just look at the sky, until the boy tugged her along up the stairs, along a verandah.

"We must move carefully," said the boy, calmly. "The power of the nine-headed beast cannot yet touch this place, which belongs to Suzaku, but his servants are vigilant. It is only because of the fire bird's protection that I can be here."

"The nine-headed beast?" asked Hikari, as she followed him down the corridor, past beautiful tapestries and curtains she wished she had more time to look at. They had reached the end of the long corridor, which opened into a long verandah. Up ahead was a garden, beautiful precisely because it was not manicured into submission. In the distance, she could see the glimmer of water under the light of the stars, which gleamed cheerfully overhead.

"He who wants to destroy the book, Suzaku's child," said the boy, through the calm. Of course, he spoke quite calmly, and thus it took Hikari a moment to realise what he had said. "He believes that it will destroy the link between the two worlds and end the reign of the four gods."

All the toast in the world couldn't have stopped her from freaking out at this. It would later shame her to know that her first and primary source of alarm was not so much the destruction of the world but the plaintive and childish horror: How would she go home?

"And will it?" she asked, staring at him.

The boy turned to tilt his head at her and smiled simply. "Do you underestimate the four gods, or just yourself, Suzaku's child?"

Hikari blinked. "I ... don't know. I can't believe in something I don't know."

"But I am here," he pointed out, tilting his head and frowning at her. "And you are here. What is there to know?"

"...I," Hikari paused, disconcerted by this simple logic that threw off her skepticism. Damn it. "Who are you? I don't know who you are," she added, unnecessarily, as though to counter his argument.

"I am the yellow dragon," he supplied, in the same calmly logical tone. His eyes gleaming as he looked at her.

Hikari, whose eyebrows had disappeared behind her fringe now, was silent for a moment. Then, cautiously, she said, "You don't _look_ like a dragon."

"That's because if I looked like a dragon, you would be less open to this conversation. And also, I am dead!" he informed her, in a cheerful sort of tone. Hikari bit her lip, wondering if she should express sorrow about this, but he didn't seem particularly annoyed about it. "I don't really remember _how _it happened - but I am! And I can, in this spirit form, take on any form I like! So I chose you!"

"You chose... that's _me_? I wasn't a boy!"

"I am a boy," he told her, not very helpfully. "Though it doesn't matter very much for dragons."

"I'm still not a boy," she added, with a bit a shrug, as a clarification. Why was he so ... so _happy_? Hadn't he just told her that some psychopath with nine-heads was trying to destroy the book? And why didn't _she _feel less inclined to run screaming? On the other hand, she had to admit that he was right - a small child was a lot less threatening than a whole dragon. Or even half a dragon. Or any combination of dragon, because they did not exist and she did not believe in things that did not exist. Right?

The child tilted his head, amused. But he spoke kindly. "That's a losing battle you're fighting. Now," he added, tightening his hold over her hand (despite her brief and fleeting thought that there was no hand - just like that spoon in that movie Hanako had watched only because of the protagonist, which had involved a spoon and a kid and, really, this was why you shouldn't talk through a movie!), "we must stay somewhat more silent. It does not hurt to be extra vigilant, after all."

"Bu-" Hikari began, but cut herself off, alarmed as a different voice reached her ears.

"Who are these women?"

Hikari froze.

The voice continued. "What we do not understand, Shushou-sama(2)," continued the voice, somewhat nonsensically, "is why they would tell the guard they were here to meet the traitor."

"Heika(3), you must not underestimate the enemy. Perhaps they were being honest, and did not know, but can we take that chance?" Hikari's mild horror turned into panic. She knew that voice - she would know it anywhere, even though she had only heard it once before. It was a voice that made her shiver, like being dragged over icicles. A voice that was embedded in her mind because of the fear that it instigated.

The warmth against her hand grew closer around her and as she looked down, apparently by sheer force of the boy's will, a pure glow spread through her. He grinned, and tugged her to the wall, as though he thought standing there and being silent would make them invisible. The footsteps grew louder and six men passed by the corridor. Four were guards, flanking the two men who had spoken. And there he was: the tall commander she had encountered a night ago. But the fear that had grasped her heart not a second ago could not reach, somehow, not while the boy kept holding her hand. Though it was absolutely absurd that they just stand to the side and pretend not to exist as a strategy for hiding, it seemed to work. Not one of the six men turned to look at them.

"You are right, of course, Shushou-sama. But we wonder, still..."

It was only now that Hikari noticed the other man who wasn't a soldier. He was dressed elaborately in red, with a strange looking ... was that a helmet?

With a jolt, Hikari realised that was the emperor, Boushin(3) and the thing on his head was, of course, his crown. He was young for an emperor, only about twenty, she guessed, with features that were subtly strong and beautiful - much like what Nyan Nyan had said about his father. As the retinue passed them, Hikari looked at him curiously. It was rude to stare - though of course he did not know that she was looking at him - but she couldn't help it. He was the emperor of the country, the son of another Suzaku seishi, and there was distinctive grace in his manner that she, as a person who generally had very little of, naturally found intriguing. Which was assisted in no small measure by the fact that he was, in fact, ludicrously good-looking...

_Ugh._ She nearly smacked her forehead out of frustration again for having noticed this, of all things.

The boy tugged at her hand, and they slipped out of the shadowy corridor to follow the group. Hikari didn't think they were visible or audible, really, but she walked, nonetheless, on the tips of her toes.

"We are disappointed," said the emperor, presently. "Have your spies any news of him at all?"

"No, your highness," said the 'prime minister', smoothly. "They believe he is heading towards Kutou with the plans; perhaps he was working for one of the many leaders Kutou currently has, all grappling for power. But he is clever - and he has extra power, which make him more difficult to catch."

Perhaps it was because of the toddler next to her, but it no longer affected her as terribly, and the lack of fear gave her the opportunity to look more closely at him and note the subtle differences between this visage and that of the Commander who had attached Reishun. But the prime minister looked older, not as tall as the man who had attacked them the night before, nor as thin. He looked somewhat different as well, as though his features had shifted, just a little, in order to look more like the people in Kounan, rather than the rugged tribes from Sairou. But he had the same black, fathomless, terrifying eyes, and the same dark aura about him, which did the reverse of Nyan Nyan's aura or the ... dragon boy's aura, and dimmed the space about them. Hikari did not doubt who he was.

"We understand," said Boushin, nodding. "We must of course take the threat from Kutou very seriously."

"Yes, Heika. It is not immediate, of course. The warring tribes continue to contend over who possesses actual authority. That is why I wonder-" The prime minister stopped, and Hikari, who was freaking out very, very silently, thought that this was probably it. He _knew_. He was evil and had horrible powers and knew they were right there. But the boy did not move, keeping his hand on hers. Fortunately, all that the prime minister did was to raise a hand and wave the soldiers away. With a certain amount of disgruntled clunking, they departed, ignoring Hikari and the boy standing rather awkwardly in the middle of the corridor.

"I wonder," he continued, as they started to walk again, "if I may presume to speak so freely... your family has been so closely associated with the Vermillion Bird (4) and the magic behind the holy scrolls... I wonder if Heika knows of any thing that might assist in the search for these holy objects."

Boushin was silent, a certain rigidity in his countenance, perhaps because of the mention of his father. Hikari watched him curiously. The initial shock of his presence as emperor and the natural beauty and grace was over, and she willed for him to know nothing, hoping fiercely that he would not trust this terrible person. Surely, he had to know that his aura was completely dark - surely he could see as much. But the truth was that the prime minister looked about as likely to attack anyone as he was to dance around the verandah. He seemed perfectly normal, and perhaps if Hikari had not known that he was evil, then she wouldn't have noticed.

"We do not know," he said, and Hikari's shoulders sagged with relief, even as she considered how much of a ponce Boushin really had to be to refer to himself in the plural.

"Perhaps," said the prime minister, softly, "perhaps Heika's mother might know."

Boushin stopped as soon as these words were out of the older man's mouth. Hikari looked at him - something about him was terribly interesting, not in a hormonal thirteen-year-old sort of way (though that, she knew, was somewhat undeniable). But something was amiss. Perhaps without his soldiers around him, he allowed himself the liberty of looking exhausted, but the exhaustion, the negativity coming from him was more than substantial. With slippery smoothness, the latter retracted them immediately. "I apologise if I have spoken out of turn. But you know that this is a matter of Kounan's welfare. If she is hi- if she knows something that could help us, then ... perhaps Heika could ask her."

Boushin was silent, and Hikari could not tell if the grimness about him was only a reflection of whatever had been stolen or something stronger. Because the sequence of events so far had indicated that bad only became worse, she assumed the latter. "We are going to bed, Shushou-sama," he said, after a long moment. "Good night."

He turned and walked down the corridor, while Hikari watched him go. The stars' light made the jewels in his crown glow, but also highlighted the dark about him. As Hikari squinted, the small hand around hers tightened again, and she felt the burst of _positivity _glow in her - and suddenly, for a moment, she could _see_. She could see the outline of the darkness that surrounded the empreror,a serpentine shape against the light of the stars. It was distinct from the emperor himself, but it was evident. If she didn't know better, she would have said it looked ... well, it looked like a dragon.

Then, the hand on hers loosened and the clarity was gone. So, it appeared, was the prime minister, leaving the boy and her alone in the corridor.

"The darkness about the emperor," began Hikari, but he cut her off by sitting down cross legged on the floor. Frowning, Hikari knelt down as well, feeling slightly ridiculous. They were sitting in the middle of the corridor of an ancient palace and having a bit of a chat. Surely, even without their odd circumstances, this wasn't proper.

"Forgive me. I am tired - coming here was not simplistic. That darkness around the prince, as you correctly call it, is the one who has taken over the shrine of Suzaku. This is why you are not safe here," he explained, looking at her seriously. Hikari thought of the sense of nervousness that had taken over her as she'd looked at the shrine. Now that she thought about it, every time she looked at it, she had felt ill - as though something was amiss. And it was only after they had come closer to the shrine that she had lost consciousness. She frowned, but the boy blinked and the seriousness was gone.

"He is a fool," he said, with a grin. "But we must never underestimate the enemies. He is quite powerful - even if he believes that taking over Suzaku's shrine is an effective strategy against the beast-god of the South." He shook his head derisively, and this was mildly comforting. But Hikari's brows knitted anxiously anyway.

"Who... who is he-"

"He who has the power to destroy the center, if not really the intelligence. The plan is not his..." explained the boy, and though Hikari wanted to point out that this was not really any kind of explanation, she could only stare. "The plan was concocted many millenia ago by the nine-headed beast, who knows the ways of the gods. It is only until the center is hidden from him that the universe stands, but Taiitsukun grows weaker and the power of the center is shaken."

"So the book is not-"

"Oh, the book _is_!" he insisted. "The book is the link! The book is _everything_! Nothing exists without the other anyway..."

"But you said that the- it wouldn't destr-"

"There is hope. He cannot destroy the book as long as it exists! See?"

_Well,_ she thought, _duh._

"But he is gathering power, and with every scroll he destroys, he weakens the center even further than it already is. There are few scrolls left now. The servant is wise and understands that it is not enough to win power by destruction. And you, Hikari-chan," he cut her off, looking at her so earnestly that she stopped again, staring into the ancient eyes. Hikari was very young, even as a child of Suzaku, and the depths of the old knowledge in the little boy's eyes was shocking to her. "You must hurry. _You have to find me._"

"I- but you're here..."

"I am the spirit," he agreed, "but I too am weak, and without my corporeal form, I am lost. You must find me and you must save me."

"But how- I'm trapped in the prison, remember? How do I-"

"The objects will tell you," he said, firmly. "You have to find the objects. Now _go _- you have to wake up now."

"I- wait- _no_-"

But he shook his head and grinned. And then, as though on impulse, he reached with both hands for her face, pressing his forehead against hers with childlike affection, so unquestioning that it was nearly animalistic, and which felt like a really big warm hug. S"You are Suzaku's child," he said, sounding delighted again. "You will know what to do. We shall see each other soon! And I do look forward to it."

Then, before she could counter the great confidence in his voice, or say that she looked forward to it too, or return the hug somehow, he _let go_. Though they hadn't been at any kind of height, she hurtled down, along the spiral staircase of her subconscious to consciousness. As she 'landed', she jerked awake, her eyes snapping open.

* * *

Hanako did not quite know what had happened, though she knew it wasn't good. It had not been exactly the same when Hikari had vanished into the book - the bright red flash of light certainly was the same, but there had been no veritable explosion of energy. Hanako had just been blinded then; this time, she had been thrown back completely, landing neatly onto the couch, which had fallen over, leaving her legs pointed at the ceiling. The first thing Hanako did, thus, was to pull Yui's old school skirt (which she was now wearing) up and go very, very red, even though in the blinding aftermath of the explosion, no one could have possible seen.

The next thing she did was to, carefully, bring her legs down to the appropriate altitude and straighten up, with a certain amount of pain that was natural if one was caught in between couches, floors and explosions. A loud groan met her ears and she turned to find that Keisuke had been less fortunate and landed face first in a flower pot. Hanako shook her head, mostly to get the buzzing to stop, and looked around. Yui-san was straightening up from behind the other couch, upon which Nakago sat gloriously unaffected. Of course.

What had happened? When Hikari had vanished, there had been no explosion, but then Hikari had not been yelling at the book like Miaka-san had been, clutching at Hanako's uniform, holding it close to her face and screaming as though she expected to drag Hikari out by virtue of a lot of noise. Apparently, the book had sort of yelled back, getting sick of all the yelling, as though to say '_SHUT UP YOU FOOLS AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE_'. Hanako could sort of understand that. It was an old book and probably did not like being manhandled in that manner. Not to mention that the plan of simply dragging Hikari back had seemed, to her, somewhat impossible. She wanted her friend back as much as everyone else, really, but she knew that the book had dragged her in for a reason. That was how things were. This naive logic was the thing keeping her saner than all grown-ups put together (Nakago, she decided, slightly viciously, did not count).

"Yuuki-sensei?" she asked, getting to her feet to head towards the fallen basketball coach, who emerged in one piece and definitely better than the Feng Shui plant.

"I'm fine," he said, shaking his head as he straightened up, looking at the formerly neat and tidy living room. Then he squinted. "No," he said, dazed.

"No?" asked Hanako, peering at him anxiously.

"No," he repeated, the expression on his face one of incredulity (which was possibly somewhat fitting, though he would be the first person who would find the idea of killing a flower pot with his head incredulous, per se). "I mean - Hana-chan? Yui-chan? I'm seeing things, right?" he asked, in what, even to Hanako, sounded like a desperate attempt at optimism.

"What?" asked Hanako, shaking her head, and then as Keisuke pointed, she turned.

And stared.

"Oh no," murmured Hanako.

In the middle of the room, on the floor, was the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, lying wide open and still glowing faintly red. And kneeling beside it, in the space where Miaka had been before she had exploded, was what appeared to be a rather diminutive ancient Chinese seamstress clutching at Hanako's school uniform and some very fine silk material of a matching shade. She was slightly plump, pleasantly so, and looked as though she was in her late thirties or early forties or so. And, as she stared back at Hanako in equal shock, her face turned to one of deep terror.

Keisuke said something rather dirty. Then he apologised, going red in the face though Hanako couldn't see it, because she was busy staring at the woman and being very alarmed.

"A- are you the gods?" asked the woman, in a horrified and yet reverent sort of tone.

Everyone stared at each other for a minute. Yui, on the other side of the room, finally, spoke. "Not exactly," she said, quietly, choosing very strange words and making the seamstress turn around in alarm and stumble over the upturned coffee table. "I mean no! Of course not. I am... I am Kajiwara Yui. This is ... this is-" She turned to look at Nakago, who appeared to be looking at the ceiling as though deeply frustrated with the management, and decided that, though he was from the same approximate timeline, he was generally speaking a subject best avoided. "That is Yuuki Keisuke," she pointed to Keisuke, who gave her a forced grin that made him look like he was having an aneurysm, "and ... Hanako-chan."

"Sakamoto," supplied Hanako, more helpfully, though all that this polite round of introductions appeared to be doing was to freak out the woman further. "Sakamoto... Hanako. But you can call me Hana-chan - everyone does. And, erm."

The woman stared at them, uncomprehendingly, and they stared back. A deep, horrified silence fell on them, stretching out with remarkable elasticity into what felt like minutes, but was only about five seconds through which the woman held out. Then, her lip wobbled dangerously, and she burst into tears.

"Oh, oh! Oh!" said Keisuke, even more alarmed. Strange women! Strange women _CRYING_? That should be illegal! "Oh, she's _crying_!"

"Yes, but why are _you _jumping around?" demanded Hanako, giving him a vexed look.

Yui, trying to act rationally, moved towards the woman. But this turned out to be a very bad move, because it scared her even more. Leaping up, she shook her head, raising a hand and shaking it vigorously.

"No!" she yelled, hysterically, "don't come near me! I- I-"

"But-" said Yui, taking another step forward. And that did it.

The woman bolted, ducked away from Yui, across the small beautiful dark mahogany table that Yui had once bought with great pride to keep attractive but useless things on, and which had suffered from something like a crack along its center, and towards the kitchen. Giving her table a look of deep sorrow, and then tossing Hanako and Keisuke a helpless sort of look, Yui followed her tentatively into the kitchen. A second later, a terrible sound reached their ears, the kind of cacophony that marks the conclusive meeting of several expensive and breakable plates and the floor.

The woman bolted out again, cast about a horrified look. Bawling, she rushed to the first door she saw and ran right through it.

"My god," said Keisuke, truly horrified.

"I know!" said Hanako, extremely concerned, running forward to help Yui, who came out looking terribly pained.

"Those were _china_..."

"Come _on_!" said Hanako, urgently, and Yui, though frustrated, nodded. What else _could _they do? They needed her to get Miaka back. Not to mention that that woman couldn't be running loose! They ran to the door, leaving Keisuke and Nakago to look at each other for about a second, before:

"KEISUKE!" yelled Hanako, poking her head back out and forgetting her manners. "GET IN HERE."

She ducked back in, leaving Keisuke to glare enviously at Nakago, who was no longer studying the ceiling but silently staring at Keisuke. There was just the slightest hint of a smirk on his face, which made Keisuke want to hurt him. Really, Keisuke would rather kill several flowerpots with his head than deal with a hysterical time-travelling woman who, for the love of god, _CRIED_. "You lucky bastard," he muttered, stalking off into the interiors of Yui's flat, leaving Nakago to adjust his smirk.

As it often happened, Nakago knew something that everyone did not. Indeed, common mortals could not hope to perceive anything over the terrible distraction of the murder of china plates and flower pots and disappearing Suzaku no Mikos (although this particular lot of mortals should have been more accustomed to the possibility of the latter). Not to mention that Yui lived in a fancy home, with thick walls that effectively blocked out the sounds of the outdoors. You would have to have special powers to hear, in particular, of the mechanical creature that had pulled up in the driveway and the man who had stepped out and had crunchily walked across the gravelly path to the door. By the time he had finished fiddling with his keys, Keisuke had left the room. And by the time he managed to open the door, Nakago had managed to adjust his expression to the most appropriate deadpan.

And this was how, in the middle of the disaster zone that vaguely resembled the living room he had left behind in the morning, Kajiwara Tetsuya found Nakago sitting on his couch.

* * *

**Author's Ramblings:** Weird chapter? I think so. The story has sort of decided to take a walk on the wild side, and who am I to argue. The part with Hikari was more difficult than the rest, though I highly suspect that the semi-philosophical ramblings of the tiny boy person will make more sense than the seamstress-in-living-room business. However, that part was oodles of fun. This is ... sort of the first hint you have of Hikari's "powers", but they're not terrifically unique so far. Is she "reading auras" in that scene up there? Yes, she is, sort of - but this is sort of happening in the in-between state, which is just sort of a dream really. So is that a power? Isn't it a power? Has the author drunk too much tea? Probably. Anyway, I hope I've not managed to turn everyone off from this story.

A special thanks to Flashyfirebird, the Mysterious Bunny Friend, Daenerys Pendragon and to Alice for reading and commenting so far. Your reviews keep me going. That and the Mysterious Bunny Friend's potential nagging XD which always helps. Stay tuned!

_Notes:_  
1) Am I just trying to be a ponce and quote random things? Possibly. I just sort of am in the process of understanding this story myself, and there are parts of it, related to this part, which make a lot of sense in terms of that wonderful poem. If it makes SOME sense but too much then that's ... the agenda. Sorry to be random.

2) Shushou = Prime Minister

3) Heika = Majesty

4) The "Vermillion Bird of the South" generally refers to Suzaku.

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading!


	14. 13 Vague Disclaimers

_Preliminary note: I suck. Sorry. I had an editted version and I had the original version and the only difference was the ... thing I have marked with three asterixes now (***). I am really sorry to post and THEN edit. _

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Vague Disclaimers** (3)

* * *

The bathroom door remained profoundly unyielding. Apparently, being a minor supporting character in an epic story equipped you with the knowledge of how to lock yourself up in the most useful room in the house. Of course, that wasn't quite the issue - they had three other bathrooms - but it was still extremely frustrating. Hanako hadn't given up, but Yui was now nursing a headache, which had started with a tic in the eye when her china had come crashing to the floor and exploded when Keisuke had tried to burst open through the solid bathroom door (he now sat nursing his shoulder) leading to nothing but an exponential rise in the decibel levels of the woman locked inside.

Yui wanted to be a supportive person, she really did, but this was just getting on her nerves more than anything else. Okay, so you were in a world you did not know! But how the hell was crying about it going to help? The only person who seemed genuinely capable of helping was the thirteen-year-old currently wearing Yui's old clothes. Keisuke was not really helping, for all his big-brother-ness and good intentions. And Miaka... Miaka had somehow manage to take a pit of a situation and make it a thousand times worse. This wasn't surprising, of course, because Miaka had a tendency to do that, but there was really a time and place for that kind of thing. Things, she thought, decisively, could not possibly get worse.

This was when the strangled cry of her husband sounded through the house and he came hurtling in through the door. "Na-naka-ka NAKAGO ON COUCH! NAKAGO ON COUCH! DAMN IT! YUI! KEISUKE!" He paused, looking at Hanako, who stared back.

"Hi?" she offered.

"NAKAGO ON COUCH! YUI WHY?" yelled Tetsuya, losing coherence. "WHY! COUCH! LIVING ROOM! WHAT THIS- this-" He looked around as the sounds of crying grew louder. "Bathroom? ...help!" he finished, weakly, heading for his best friend. "What the hell, man, why is Nakago sitting on my couch?"

Yui rubbed her head. "Hikari-chan-" she began, but Keisuke cut in and took over.

"She's been taken into the book!"

"Whaaaat?"

"And Taka ABANDONED us to deal with Miaka!"

"Oh my god!"

"And now Miaka's gone into the book and SHE came out!" he yelled, pointing with some terror at the door. Howling. She was howling now.

"But why Nakago on my couch!" demanded Tetsuya, unaware of grammar and reason and the fact that his wife was giving him the kind of look that signalled doom.

"Who knows? He's just sitting there being unhelpful and I don't like it but he won't move!"

"Actually, he said something about the Shinzaho of Seiryuu," put in Hanako, still by the bathroom door.

Yui's eye twitched. "Alr-"

"COUCH, Keisuke! It was so scary to walk in and there he was and WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!"

There was only one thing to do, really. With years of experience of having to take charge when everyone around her lost their senses, Yui marched up to Tetsuya and stamped on his foot. Hard.

"_Ow_!" he said, indignantly, turning to give her a traumatised look. "Yui what-"

"No!" she snapped. "Don't ask me questions! Don't say anything, just calm down and take a breath! Okay? That goes for you too," she looked at Keisuke, who almost pouted but said nothing. "Yes, he is on the couch. No, we don't know how to get him out of here. Yes, he's the evil one, but he hasn't done anything truly evil so far. Yes, Hikari and Taka and Miaka are all in the book, and for some reason, we're being punished for our efforts with a crying snivelling woman who thinks breaking all the china in my kitchen is a good idea! WHICH IT ISN'T, DO YOU HEAR ME?" Yui exploded. She marched up to the bathroom door, just as Hanako ducked out of the way, and banged on it with her fist. "I know you're afraid, but you're not helping anyone! How is crying all over the place and locking yourself in the bathroom going to help? If you want to get out of this mess, stop crying, open the door and _stop breaking all my stuff_!"

Silence followed this, glorious, miraculous silence in which no one sniffed or had a minor panic attack. Everyone sat very still, slightly alarmed, but mostly more calm from being yelled at. Yui, slightly red in the face, breathed out.

"Okay, then" she said, in a strained sort of voice, loathing the role she had been forced into. She had never been fond of taking charge, really, and she wanted nothing more than to not be involved with the stupid book. But here they were, and everyone else seemed to be at a loss as to what to do. "Keisuke, make some tea for the ... her. Hana-chan, if you think you can get her out of there, just make sure she doesn't touch anything breakable. Tetsuya, go downstairs and follow the book and, in the future, remember if there is a strange person in the living room, please do not leave them there alone."

"Bu-"

"No, don't speak," she added, shaking her head as she headed out of the room to get herself a painkiller, "I don't want to hear it."

* * *

Hikari stared infuriatedly at the pitch blackness that she had 'woken up' to. The floor of the cell under her was cold, her stomach was very tangibly empty, and the boy was of course gone entirely. How had he wormed his way into her waking dream? And why was everyone in the stupid book so terribly fond of highly vague disclaimers? Before she could comment on this vagueness, or stretch her slightly achy limbs out, and even before her eyes could adjust to the darkness (that boy had been remarkably shiny), something smacked her on the back and she hit the floor with a sound 'THUD!' This, she realised a second later, was the noise her nose made while meeting the cold stone floor. "Ow!" yelled Hikari, indignantly.

"Sorry!" said Reishun's voice. "I never remember- wait, NO. I'm not sorry - _I'm _mad at _you_! Heck of an idea, fainting all over the place like that! Do I look like I want to rescue a damsel-in-distress? I am the _pretty_ one, damn it, I'm not the one who's going to carry around floppy little girls who can't hold down their own damn fish!"

"...wait, _floppy_?" Still rubbing her nose, Hikari tilted her head. But Reishun was not done yet.

"That's right. Do yo have any idea how stupid you looked? You looked like a dead fish - interestingly ironic, isn't it? Reaching out like some kind of invalid freak who couldn't hold themselves together!"

"What do you mean "floppy"?"

"And no, of course, you wouldn't SAY anything - why would a damn damsel do something logical like telling her friend that she's feeling unwell! Well, it's stupid! If you do anything like that again, I will kill you!"

Reishun glowered, looking so very furious that if Hikari hadn't known how worried she had looked, she may have been seriously offended. She was still slightly offended, of course; what did she mean by '_floppy_' anyway? But she could sort of appreciate the anger. It took someone who really cared about you to yell at you in a manner consistently nonsensical and loud. Her parents only ever had the stupidest fights, often with cushions and other silly objects, but a lot of yelling. Hikari knew (theoretically, because Hanako had told her as much) that the amount of yelling generally indicated how much you were loved.

"Are you done?" she asked, tentatively.

"Yes," said Reishun, only very slightly sulky. "But I'm still annoyed."

"Okay," said Hikari, rubbing her nose, her own annoyance somewhat displaced.

"I mean it was pretty silly."

"Yes, you mentioned that."

"How are you feeling?"

"My nose is broken," said Hikari, reflectively, "but I'll live. Very hungry, though. Very, very hungry."

"Yes, you kept mumbling something about ... something called 'toast'? I figured it was food because you also mumbled something about tea." Reishun nodded, and then raised both eyebrows at a slightly alarmed looked Hikari. "And then you said something about dragons. That sounds like a hell of a weird dream."

"Yeah," said Hikari, after a moment, "it was a hell of a weird dream." She turned to look at the bars of their cell. To the right of those, she knew, there were a two large guards. She turned to Reishun and leaned closer, speaking in a very quiet whisper. "So, the dream was... very weird? It was- it wasn't quite a- you know, it was one of those-" Hikari stopped and looked annoyed, though it was a toss-up as to what she was more annoyed with - the dream itself or the fact that she had to talk about it or that after the amazing walk around the palace in a carefree manner, she was back in a prison cell with no hope for escaping. "An out-of-body experience with a frustratingly vague disclaimer," she concluded, after a moment of considering what the experience could be rightfully called.

"Eh?"

"It's complicated," she muttered, and leaned even closer to Reishun, who leaned forward with greated suspicion. "There are two guards in the passage, okay? I- we need to get out of here, because - because you remember that commander?"

Reishun raised an eyebrow.

"Of course you do. Well, he's here," Hikari hissed, speaking hurriedly after this, "I don't know how but he is - he's pretending to be the prime minister and he's got the emperor in a mess and we were arrested because your idiot loverboy has managed to escape with some critical docum-"

"_What_?"

"Shhh!"

There was a shuffling in the corridor as one of the guards (whom Hikari thought, somewhat unfairly, of as 'potato-heads') ambled down to take a look at the two screaming women. "Quiet in there!" he rumbled, knocking his spear against the bars of the cell as Hikari and Reishun both gave him looks of deep loathing. Supremely unaffected, he ambled back and settled back down.

Hikari took Reishun's arm and shook it. "Don't yell!" she mouthed, shaking her head. Reishun, who was both bigger than Hikari and a lot stronger, took her by the collar.

"What the hell do you mean he's escaped with important documents?" she demanded, in a furious, but very very quiet, whisper.

"That's what I mean-"

"How do you know?"

"I- it was a... er, very weird dream," said Hikari, deeply uncomfortable. This sounded so illogical that she could not quite make sense of it herself, and Reishun's looks of deep suspicion did not help. Perhaps the straightforward answer had been a bad idea, but it had seemed more important to tell Reishun than to worry about sounding like a loon. Of course, now she sounded like a loon and she really did not like it. "I know what it sounds like, okay, but - you just - you've got to trust me."

"I do," said Reishun, and let go of her collar. "Even if you sound like a bumbling idiot. Did you knock your head when you fell?"

"No!" snapped Hikari. And then shrugged. "Well, that I know of."

Reishun scowled. "Okay," she said, after a minute, "Do yo know where he went?"

"They said something about Kutou-"

"Kutou," Reishun's eyes widened. "But that doesn't make sense. He would never do that. No, really," she added, as Hikari shrugged, "he was always talking about protecting Kounan and serving Suzaku. He-" Reishun lowered her voice even further. "He was the emperor, in his past life. Why would he betray the country he left m- home to protect?"

"I don't know," said Hikari, shaking her head. "But I know that prime minister is that commander - he's evil and he's very close to the emperor. And-" And then what? "And I don't know, but I know, okay? And where is Nyan Nyan?" she mouthed, frowning.

Reishun shrugged, scooting over so that she was sitting next to Hikari. "She floated off a while back. But that- I saw the prime minister, okay? And he isn't pleasant, but he isn't that powerful."

Hikari glared. "I - fine. I'm right. I know that."

They both sat back, glaring pointlessly. Hikari tried to ignore the sudden sense of being alone she had, because it was ridiculous. She'd met Reishun a couple of days back, so why the hell should her opinion matter so much? She concentrated on more important things. She needed a plan. They had to get out of there, find the other three Shinzahos and ... and somehow rescue the yellow dragon who was wandering around in the shape of a child but apparently was actually dead.

Exhausted, Hikari slumped against the wall, looking at Reishun. How would they leave? Even if Reishun could take those two men outside with a tap of her hand, they still needed to get out of the palace and find the objects? Where would they start looking? It was probably because of the child's overwheleming glow that Hikari wasn't freaking out to the point of silliness.

That, and she was very hungry.

Before she could bring up the subject of escape, though, a woman's voice echoed down the passage

"Guards, please head out to the garden quickly. The empress needs some help, and she has requested your presence."

"Eh?"

"What's she need helpin' for?"

"Well, don't dawdle - come along or we shall have to report you to the Emperor."

A significant amount of grunting and muttering occured and with some shuffling, the guards stepped out. Hikari and Reishun looked at each other, the gleam of being totally geared to take the opportunity that had been presented to them in their eyes. They stood, but before they could, footsteps echoed down the corridor and from the darkness emerged a beautifully dressed young woman. A beautifully dressed, very familiar looking young woman. Hikari raised an eyebrow, and then blinked at the woman produced a key.

"Come," she said, unlocking their door.

"...eh?"

"Come!" she emphasized, looking at them sincerely, almost severely. "Empress Houki can't have them looking for her earrings forever." (2)

* * *

In the darker hours of the night, the shrine of Suzaku presented a looming and unfriendly picture, casting a long and dark shadow along the open courtyard against the dim light of the stars. It was a moonless night, though it did not matter very much to the somewhat stocky man in formal officials' robes hurrying along the courtyard at this hour. He knew his way aroun the imperial palace of Eiyou, and his nightly visits to the shrine, seen only as reverent, had made him accustomed to the path that led to it from his quarters.

Nodding to the guards, who looked altogether so vigilant that it seemed very likely that they had been sleeping a second ago, the man stepped up the stairs of the ancient temple. Once, Suzaku had been a glorious being - a being that signified hope. And it was to honour this hope that they royal families at Kounan had built the exquisite temple in the auspicious red and gold that marked the colours of the god. But the priestess had come and gone, and although the present ruler maintained the temple out of a filial piety towards the god, there was no longer a belief that the god could save the country. The prophecy had been fulfilled, the story was over, and the hope that kept Suzaku alive was gone.

Gods, he knew, were only as powerful as the beliefs of the people. He himself believed, and his belief had been so powerful that it had survived unprecedented obstructions. His belief in his god would be what would bring draw him to the earth, and then the time of the four gods would truly be over.

Opening the door of the shrine, the prime minister stepped inside. As the door closed behind him, he stepped forward, walking towards the golden statue of the phoenix, though it no longer held the same lusture as it had once. The emperor would have it cleaned, but his own beliefs were dwindling, thanks to the prime minister's own efforts and the presence of the future lord and master of the universe. The prime minister's vision was not as clear as he wished. He was but a common mortal, even if he was a mortal on the path to greatness. Until their efforts were rewarded, he would remain common.

But even then, he could see the faint shadow of a creature wrapped around the statue, a serpentine form of a different hue from the Vermillion Bird's - the powerful force of which the prime minister had only ever had a hint of. It was exquisite, the depths of the being's powers, and compelling. He felt a thrill run up his spine as he knelt reverently and closed his eyes to pray.

The transformation was instant. The god himself reached for the prime minister's consciousness and drew him to his power. It was alive, and rustling, and quite impatient somehow, as though the god had been waiting. The voice echoed in the prime minister's mind.

"Welcome, my servant," he said, imperiously.

"My lord, I bring news," said the prime minister, in his cold voice, though he knew not if he spoke out loud at all. "We have captured two women, who claim to be related to the Suzaku warrior."

"One of those women," said the god, not a little derisively, "is a Suzaku warrior herself. Your eyes are not open, yet. It is so disappointing to have a servant who does not have the capacity to serve me to his fullest."

"I- I know, my lord," he stammered. "I-I have been trying my best to-"

"It is of no consequence. Do you have news of the other seishi, the one born under the constellation Xīng(1)?"

"My lord - no, I regret to tell you-"

A wave of great impatience washed over the prime minister, comparable to a petulant child's irritability, except that it was a thousand times more profound and powerful. "How long will it take!" he roared, furiously.

"We are doing all we can, my lord!"

"The god-objects have left the city! I can no longer sense them! You have failed - this is all your fault!"

"B-but my lord-"

The enormous wall of fury dissipated in a matter of seconds, much to the prime minister's great confusion. He served a powerful lord, but a moody one, who could flit from one emotion to the next without any warning. "And you are about to fail again," growled the black dragon. "The cell with those women is empty! They have escaped! Run! Hurry NOW and CAPTURE them!" he hollered, with such force that the man fell over. But he was on his feet again, rushing out and yelling for the guards to follow him.

* * *

About halfway down the corridor, Reishun began to feel slightly anxious. The woman who was leading them through the darker passages, moving gracefully and easily, as though she was aware of what was safe and what needed to be avoided, was certainly not what you would call the embodiment of treachery and evil. But it felt almost unrealistic to trust her.

Reishun was, of course, a positive person. She firmly believed in trusting the universe to make sure things worked out for the best (and she knew that the best for her was to land up married to Shu Eian, of course). But this was a little strange. Nonetheless, they were out of the cage and so far they had not been led to a trap. Not to mention, why would the commander, if he indeed was here as Hikari said, want to go through the effort of helping them escape from prison to send them right back again?

A part of her also knew that these passages did not lead to even more danger so much as they did to the royal family's living quarters - though she couldn't have said that she knew this. The passages of the palace were familiar to her, and she knew why they were familiar - just as she knew why the name 'Houki' was familiar. Nuriko's memories, even though they had faded, were still in her, still strong. If she'd known him, she would have picked his brains for courtly culture, and the beautiful clothes that the women of the court had worn, and, of course, for advice about Hotohori's reincarnation.

Still, she made sure she stuck close to Hikari, casting continual looks backwards to make sure no one was following them. Maybe, she thought, with ominous over-imagination that she would not discount despite that it sounded slightly silly in her head, the commander wanted them to be dragged out so he could kill them without anyone knowing about it. And this woman was an evil minion! She probably had three heads under that adorable one and scales all over her body.

(***)

It was thus almost anti-climatic when all that happened by the end of their midnight sojourn was that their rescuer opened a door and led them into a really large, beautifully furnished room and said, "Please wait here, the empress will be right with you. Here," she added, holding something out in the palm of her hand.

And before either of them could say a thing, the thing in the palm of her hand said, "We're safe Kowaiiineechan!"

Reishun and Hikari both gaped. "...NYAN NYAN!"

"Hai!" agreed Nyan Nyan.

"I will leave you," said the young serving girl, and did so, before either of them could thank her or possibly threaten to hurt her if she didn't keep her mouth shut (though this was probably unnecessary). Nyan Nyan continued to bounce.

(/***_ author's note: I stink! :( I promise to try not to do this again!)_

"Nyan Nyan bring help! Kowaiineechan okay! Kowaiineechan met Touda-san!"

"You met whom?" asked Reishun, blinking at Hikari. The girl had apparently had quite an adventure while lying around unconscious, which was... well, probably not substantially stranger than arriving in a new world through a book, but still fairly odd. Reishun had a lot of questions, though she hadn't had the change to grill her just yet. But on this front, Hikari seemed just as surprised as she was.

"Who?" she asked, staring at Nyan Nyan. "The prime minister's called-"

"_Nooooooo_!" wailed Nyan Nyan. "That is a bad man!"

"So I've heard, twice now," muttered Reishun, slightly irritated now. "Hikari, what is going o-"

But Hikari cut her off with a surprisingly girly shriek as the door opened. Before Reishun knew it, she'd grabbed the girl by her arm and shoved her behind her, as if standing in between the kinds of danger that the commander/prime-minister presented and Hikari would work. Oh, she knew it would not work, but she could not really help it. It was instinct more basic than she could understand herself.

An instinct quite different, as it turned out, from the instinct that grappled at her as the person stepped out of the shadows of the corridor and revealed herself to be another rather graceful looking woman, graceful and beautiful, even though lines of age had started to form at the corner of her mouth and along her forehead. And she was familiar, in a way that made Reishun instinctively want to hug her. As one would an old friend. But this was a deeper instinct, formed not from the tug of destiny as it was from plain recognition.

"Empress Houki," said Reishun, softly, not quite relaxing.

Behind her Hikari put her face in her hands and rubbed viciously as though trying to rub off the fright she had had before anyone else could notice. Reishun did not say anything about this. Although she didn't care very much for dramatic kids - which Hikari could be, sometimes - she had been thirteen and vulnerable herself and could understand the need to pretend she was strong and self-sufficient, even if she hadn't been in a life-threatening situation. Of course, Reishun sort of lived with the confidence that if there was a life-threatening situation, she would just throw something heavy at it and be done with it, and it had kept her from becoming too terribly vulnerable in any situation.

Though she did feel uneasy now, looking at the beautiful lady before her. It took her a second to distinguish between her own envy and the deeper sense of ... kinship, perhaps, and affection.

"Forgive me for startling you," she said, in a calm manner, stepping forward to take Reishun's hands with ease and squeezing them. As one would, Reishun thought, an old friend. She did not draw away, but she did not squeeze her hands in turn either. The empress smiled anyway - a soft gesture, on her face, somehow - and turned to Hikari. "I am Houki," she introduced herself. "You must be Taka and Miaka's daughter. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"You... knew them as well?" Hikari asked, for once forgetting the obligatory 'um' at the beginning of every conversation with a stranger. "I... well, I am... erm, honoured to meet you. Th-thank you for helping us." She bent her knees in the most awkward bow Reishun had ever seen and then straightened up looking like she wanted very much to be elsewhere, away from the scary stranger. It wasn't until she glowered at Reishun that the latter even realised she was smirking just a little.

"I do know your parents," nodded Houki, moving to sit down. She kept looking at Hikari, which was probably all for the best - and as a side benefit, it made Hikari squirm a little. There was a kind knowing in her eyes that was a little alarming to Reishun, as though she had knowledge about Reishun that she herself did not possess. It was even more unnerving because it was true. "Please, sit. We have little time before the sun rises. Though the darker forces troubling my country have not yet reached its core in full form, you are not safe here. Even with Nyan Nyan's protection," she added, smiling at the floating girl.

As they sat, she cast a glance at Reishun again, but said nothing specific. "Nyan Nyan told me that you were here," she went on. "I... I am sorry that we cannot offer you refuge, which is what we ought to be doing, as it is our duty."

"Empr- er, Houki-sama?" said Hikari, leaning forward. "I... we... well, this will sound strange, but your prime minister is-"

"He has a dark aura," said the empress, and though her face did not alter, she looked sadder somehow. Strangely, it suited her. Most people looked like blubbering idiots when they were sad, but the empress looked poetic. Reishun tried to work out if she found that frustrating or if she wanted to hug her and ask her not to be so sad. "I know. It is why I must sneak around in the home of my own husband, like a common criminal."

Ah, thought Reishun, slightly more resolved. Frustration. There it was. Even if it was irrational to be annoyed about someone referring to her departed husband - and also a little mean.

"He's evil," emphasized Hikari, shaking her head. "He... I don't know how he did it, but he attacked us last night, a little way off from here."

Houki looked startled. "But that is impossible," she said.

"Yeah, and since when have you become a prophet of doom anyway?"

"It is impossible," repeated Houki, firmly, "for all of last night, he was with my son, consulting over a critical matter..."

"And how do you know all this?" demanded Reishun, unable to hold back. "And the thing about Eian-"

"Eian," echoed Houki, looking at Reishun slightly wide-eyed, before looking at Hikari. Reishun had to admit that far from looking like a rival for her affections, she looked something more basic. She looked, under all the collectedness, scared, which didn't make sense at all. "You know of him?"

"I... yes. I don't know how to explain how I know, but..." Hikari looked at both older woman like a kid trapped by grown-ups. "Okay, I... well, when I ... fainted," she admitted, "I sort of took a ... walk. With a kid."

"Touda-sama!" chirped Nyan Nyan, nodding along.

It did not assure Hikari that she made any sense, because both women looked confused. Or, Houki looked confused. Reishun just looked like she thought Hikari had dropped her marbles somewhere along the way. "Um. Sure. He had a ... well, he was very..." Hikari cleared her throat at the four raised eyebrows and shook her head. "Anyway, we overheard them talking. Your son, Lady Houki, and the prime-minister. And I know it's him. I can sense that it is the same... it's a same aura, if that's the word. And your son... there's an aura around him too. It's not his own, but he is trapped and I-"

Houki rose, cutting Hikari off by taking her hands. "How do you know this?" she asked, so sincerely that Hikari knew she believed her. Of course, this didn't make it any better.

"I saw it," said Hikari, staring at her. "I don't... it was the kid - he ... helped, I don't know. But I saw it. And they were talking about how someone has escaped with these important documents, and that's why they had imprisoned us, apparently. Because we gave that person's name to the guards at the gate." She tore her eyes from Houki's compellingly sincere ones to look at Reishun, who frowned.

This was not the time and place to get annoyed about the fact that Hikari was treacherously bonding with the woman who was probably the sole reason Eian had not married her. Reishun sighed. "But Eian is not a traitor," she said, after a minute. "I have known him almost all my life, and all he talks about is protecting this country and his fa-" She cut herself off, looking annoyed. It was galling to have to admit that he had left his home, and her, to protect his family from the previous life. Galling, but true, even if she did not wish to accept it. "Well, he wouldn't do that."

"That is true," said the soft voice of the empress. "He is not a traitor, and he would not betray us. He feels very powerfully compelled to look after the family Hotohori-sama left behind. I think," she added, gently, speaking through she did not need to make any of this clear to Reishun. In fact, there was no doubting that she was speaking to Reishun directly, and once again, the latter felt exposed to a perso that she had not committed to being read so clearly by, "it is because the emperor's guilt was so profound. I... well, suffice it to say, he would never betray his country. He left, rather, on my request."

"_What_?"

"I have known for a while now that the king is being shadowed," said the empress, looking terribly sad in her collected manner. "I do doubt your beliefs about the prime minister, young Hikari-sama, because I know him to be dark. But that he attacked you last night seems... troubling, if it is indeed true. He has an unnatural control over my son, and we have not been able to protect him-"

"We? You mean-"

"Eian and myself, yes," said Houki, meeting Reishun's slightly accusatory gaze calmly. "We tried to warn him, while keeping Eian's ... other identity secret. You can imagine that it would be disastrous for the wrong people to find out, and I am in the grievous position of having to admit that I do now know if I trust my own son."

Reishun's eyes softened despite herself.

"After y- after Suzaku was summoned," Houki continued, "and Miaka-sama had returned Kounan to safety, Taiitsukun charged the surviving Suzaku seishi with the responsibility of bringing the Shinzahos of the other gods together. They left them here, in the safe refuge of Kounan's palace. Four years ago, I received a secret communication from a warrior in the land of Sairou to be more vigilant, and so I removed them from their hiding place and kept them with myself. But the prime minister has been trying to employ a number of means to get closer to the Shinzahos, including searching my rooms when I was absent and trying to trick me through my serving women. This is also why I do not think he could have attacked you, Hikari-sama," she added, looking at Hikari, "he does not appear to have any special powers and he was not able to sense the Shinzaho."

"I wish I could convince you..."

"I will remain vigilant, more so now," Houki assured her. "In her last communication, the warrior told me that it was imperative for me to get the Shinzaho out of Kounan because the dark presence is growing, and has captured Chichiri-sama. I entrusted them with Eian, and it is on my request that he pretended to steal those documents as well."

Hikari looked troubled. "I- well, we have to collect those objects," she said, tentatively.

"I thought you might. The objects are a means of bringing back the gods, aren't they?" asked the empress.

Hikari blinked. "They are?" she asked, looking uncomfortable. Certainly, she wasn't going to be able to bring back a god on her own, for heaven's sake.

"I... believe so. They are powerful nonetheless, enough to be a formidable weapon in the wrong hands."

"So, we need to find the objects based on a dream you think was real," said Reishun, looking from Hikari to Houki, "which have been sent away because someone that you don't know instructed you to do so. It's very, very rare that I have to be non-romantic person in the group, but maybe we should think about this. How do you know you can trust this communication. Who is that anyway? You could have doomed him!"

"Reishun," said Houki, calmly, meeting Reishun's gaze. "I know you must love him very much. But mustn't you trust him also?"

"I- n-yes, of course I must trust him! I mean I do trust him!" she emphasized, almost too enthusiastically, incredibly frustrated at the older woman for being so Correct. "But where is he now? How are we going to find him? Where have you sent him?"

"I-"

"Kowaiineechan must leave soon!" warned Nyan Nyan. "Soldiers coming!"

"Nono!" said Hikari, alarmed, speaking quickly, as Nyan Nyan bounced around, growing more agitated by the moment. "Nono, we have to know how to get the objects - how do we know-

"I don't know," said Houki, standing and taking Hikari's hands again. "I am sorry. You must go now. Nyan Nyan!"

"No!" cried Hikari, panicking. "No! This is-"

"Go now," said Houki, stepping back as Nyan Nyan took both their hands. She looked at Reishun again and mouthed something that sounded like, "I wish we had more time to talk, Reishun. But time has never been on our side." But Nyan Nyan had already taken their hands, yanking them through the hurtling space of pure motion, and away.

* * *

**Author's Ramblings: **Hello and thank you for reading this far. This chapter has suffered from the same crisis as chapters 8 and 9, in that it became too long and so I sliced it in half. The next chapter should be up soon, though. I know people post chapters about five times this size, but I just... don't want to do that, for the sake of the self-assigned deadline and my meagre sanity. Thanks so much to _Flashyfirebird _and_ Daenerys Pendragon_ for reviewing - nothing cheers me up like reviews ^^ And to my bunny friend wife, who is officially the nicest wife ever. Every writer needs a wife, I recommend it!

On a side note, Touda should now be reconisable to anyone who's read Genbu Kaiden, and the story of how the Shinzahos came to Eiyou is housed in Sanbou Gaiden ^^;

And next chapter: Taka and Tasuki's journey. FINALLY.

**Note:**

1) _Xīng_: Chinese name of the constellation 'Star'/'Hotohori'. Why Xīng? It sounded better than "born under the constellation of Star"? Also, I wanted to distinguish between the constellations and the seishi themselves. Anyway.

2) All of this seems 'too easy', I know, but that should hopefully make some sense later. Also, it's not ACTUALLY all that easy - but it may take a couple of chapters to make that clear.

3) The title of this chapter comes from the Buffy quote, "A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend." ^_^

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	15. 14 Shadow of Doubt

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Shadow of Doubt**

* * *

They said that if you stood at the top of the high rocky outcrop of a hill, you could see all of Sairou. Taka did not believe that, of course, because Sairou was the a really huge land, and even if you could sort of see beyond the hills that lay further to the west, your vision was most likely to be attracted to the enormous capital city of Arudo, which, even in the dim light of the morning, proved to be a far more daunting sight than what he remembered. Of course, the last time they had been here (and it was technically a whole lifetime ago for Taka) they hadn't arrived with the intention of breaking into the imperial palace, so that probably skewed their perspective somewhat, bu the city seemed at least four times as large as Eiyou.

But then again, everything seemed larger in Sairou. Over the last three days that they had travelled, they had grown to loathe the great distances that occupied so much of it Taka could sort of see the beauty in the openness and the pure wilderness of the country. There was a sort of promise in the wild, a kind of hope and knowledge that life was possible, but that you would have to fight for it. Taka had enough patience and introspection to find this poignant. Tasuki, on the other hand, thought it was crap and had been complaining about the lack of trees, the lack of rivers, the lack of too many people, the fact that there were only some strange plants to eat which tasted worse than Taka's stew and the fact that, despite it having had a really long time to work it out, the $*%&** country could not make up its $*&(%# mind about whether it was *%&(%) hot or *%&(!$)! cold. Taka had empathised (while telling him to stop being a baby). If you spent most of your early life being squashed by five large sisters and then spent your life as a bandit where privacy was something exotic and unheard of, then claustrophbia did indeed become a state of nature and the vast, open stretches of Sairou was understandably annoying.

"Oi, Obake-chan. What a $)#%* excellent view!"

Taka gritted his teeth. About six hours ago, lolling about his memories as they rode for the third night running, Tasuki had suddenly remembered Tamahome's old unfavoured nickname, and he had been calling him that ever since. This had greatly improved his mood at least, but Taka was on the verge of killing him. The only thing stopping him was the deep exhaustion from three days and nights of riding, the knowledge that now that they were here, their lack of plan as to what to do was beginning to seem somewhat stupid, and of course the fact that killing a fellow-Seishi was generally frowned upon.

He distracted himself with what was, as Tasuki had somewhat sarcastically put it, a $#$*%$ excellent view. If anything, the view was terribly daunting.

Instead, he was standing at the head of a hill and staring at a veritable fortress in the distance that he somehow had to breach.

Unlike Hokkan (or so Tasuki had told him, in confusing bits and pieces), the people in Sairou had been united under a single leader quite easily. This was mostly because of the rivers, which were like lifelines in the rugged desert lands. Controlling the rivers meant controlling the land, and the ruling dynasty had spread out all over the land, with fortresses in all large cities. Control over the rivers also meant control over trade, which was what Sairou lived on, importing food (which was hard to cultivate in the deserts - there was a forest that surrounded Arudo, but it was hardly a source of sustenance) in exchange for crafts and particularly weapons, which the land was famous for. It was a fascinating economy, especially to Taka, who was very fond of all economies, especially if they involved large quantities of gold. And Sairou had appeared to have that in plenty. They had had to travel away from the main routes for trade simply because they were so active.

Arudo was of course the center of all this activity, and over the last eighteen years or so ago, it had grown even more enormous than before. Snuggled in between two ranges of the craggy mountains that were a mark of the terrain in Sairou, it spread out over a large area, reaching nearly parasitically eastwards, towards the mountain range on which Taka and Tasuki stood. Tiny houses seemed to be crammed into every part of this space - aside from the space across the river to the west, which seemed to divide the city. On the other of the river was the palace, although it was less a palace and more a fortress, high-walled, surrounded by a moat and built in a manner that was so clearly designed to keep people out that it made Taka slightly uncomfortable.

"What kind of paranoid dynasty builds something like that?" he muttered, shaking his head. They were probably guarding against well-planned break-ins, really. Which made some sense, because here they were, planning a break in (if, by 'planning', one refered to having not the slightest idea of what to do).

A tiny rock bounced gently off Taka's head.

"Oy, Obake-chan," said Tasuki, almost kindly. "Don't be a scaredy-cat."

Taka threw the rock back at him, furiously. "Who the hell are you calling a scaredy-cat? Damn bandit. Do you have any idea how to break into THAT?"

"I'll have ya know, I _did _break into a heavily guarded palace once," pointed out Tasuki.

"Yes," agreed Taka, "but that was because Chichiri was with you making sure you didn't get into any trouble and cleaning up your mess!"

"Yeah," said Tasuki, unrepentantly, "an' then ya %*%&( broke Miaka's heart and stomped all over the pieces until I beat the *%& out of ya."

"What a time to bring that up!" yelled Taka, aggrieved (but instantly guilty nonetheless). "Anyway, I beat the $*( out of you," he muttered, but quietly. It was not too far from the truth to say that he was panicking a little now. It was not so much the fat that breaking into that fortress looked impossible. In fact, that it did made it very interesting and a bit of a challenge, really; he was certainly enough of a Suzaku seishi to look at it that was. But his daughter was missing. Bantering like a juvenile idiot with Tasuki seemed to keep his spirits up and distracted him from the subject temporarily, but the constant worry never really went away, of course.

Why hadn't he had the patience to pause and ask WHERE she had landed, he may have had a better sense of what was going on. But all he had heard was 'Hikari's in the book!' and it had spurred him into action. Where was she? Was she in trouble? Could they have prevented it? Had they made a really big mistake by not telling her about it?

"What are we going to do?" he asked, distraught.

"Do?" asked Tasuki, raising an eyebrow. "I thought the plan was to get Chichiri out, 'course!"

"Yes, exactly, but how do we intend to do that?"

"We have to breach the castle," said Tasuki, giving him a look.

"...really, Tasuki?" Taka scowled.

"The first step to doing that might be to get to the castle," supplied the bandit, helpfully, raising an eyebrow.

"And then what?" demanded Taka, who hadn't quite realised he was being teased. "We walk in and ask for directions to the dungeons?"

"Don't be such a mother's handkerchief! I have a great plan. See, first," said Tasuki, solemnly, and cleared his throat, "we should tell them we're slave traders from Kutou. Kutou's got a lot of 'em slave traders, ya know? Then, they'll invite us in for a nice round of sake (Sairou has some great sake) so we drink them under the table - 'course I'll do the drinking, because ya don't look like ya could really hold your liquor - and once they're really drunk, we'll hit 'em on the head with something heavy, steal their keys and rescue Chichiri! What do you think?"

By this time, it had occured to Taka that in his own rather odd way, Tasuki was subtly reminding him that if he freaked out, he would basically be almost entirely useless. Because it was still annoying, though, and because you had to respond, he offered Tasuki something along the lines of an _improper_ suggestion, Tasuki informed him that his suggestion was anatomically unviable, and they stood in more amicable silence than before for a few minutes, Tasuki looking especially pleased for having done his job of distracting Taka from worrying things. Even if those worrying things were quite possibly dangerous and could lead to painful death, there was no reasonable cause to for being sulky about it, was there?

"Well, Obake-chan," said Tasuki, as the sun rose an inch further in the sky behind them and their shadows before them became a notch darker, "I think we should visit old friends when visitin' a foreign land. A guy always does better in his own neighbourhood and if not, he needs a friend or two."

Taka nodded. It had occured to them before, though they had wondering if asking the surviving Byakko warriors for assistance was a good idea. Certainly they had been more than helpful before, but perhaps when it was the imperial palace of their country that they were going to theoretically break into, they might not be as approving. "We must be subtle about it," Taka warned Tasuki. "We don't know if they'll be okay with us attacking their king, you know?"

"Queen," corrected Tasuki. "They have an Empress at the moment."

"Whatever," said Taka, "the point is-"

"Oh, stop _worrying_, Obake-chan," winked Tasuki, "I can be very subtle. Anyway," he said, before Taka voice voice the deep alarm that followed that sentence, "we're not attacking their queen. We're just sneakin' a prisoner out - an' if they didn't want to be &#()*# attacked, then they shouldn'ta kidnapped a Suzaku seishi in the first %)*$&%(# place! But ya know - Tokaki-sensei and Subaru-sama were very cool."

Taka nodded. He did not remember as much as he wished he _could _remember. "I wish I remembered more, you know?" he said, with a sigh, not noticing the slightly annoyed look on Tasuki's face (it was kind of annoying to be around a guy who sighed and whinged - but it had been almost a day since they had slept last, so you couldn't entirely blame him).

Taka was in a think now. Of course he remembered their assistance during their search for the Shinzaho to summon Suzaku - but that was because of Chichiri's memory stone. All his memories had come from his fellow Seishi and Miaka. The memories before that had fallen away, although he knew there had to have been a life before. He knew Tokaki, of the Byakko Seishi, had trained him when he had been a child. He also knew that his sensei and his wife, Subaru, were both a-hundred-and-something years old, and the former was also the world's longest living pervert. Although this was probably the most critical information about them, he knew there was more that he had simply forgotten during his journey to be with Miaka.

"We'll ask him," said Tasuki, kicking his horse into motion without further ado. Anything to avoid a think. "Oh, and I bet he has all kinds of stories about how much you were picked on and how you cried a lot!"

* * *

"For the last time, Shushou-sama," said Houki, looking at the man evenly, "I do not see how a couple of girls could have unlocked the cell door and walked out on their own. Where would a common serving girl get the key from?"

The room where the most well-respected and high-ranking ministers usually convened seemed unnaturally small, though only two people occupied it for the moment, standing across from one another at opposite ends of the table. Houki regarded the prime minister with some disdain. About an hour ago, as the day was just breaking, he had come to her living quarters, of all places, banging on the door and barging in as though the palace no longer belonged to the royal family. It had taken some very severe handling to remind him of his place, and they had consented to meet in the convention room. If there had been a less controlled rush about the man before, it had disappeared now, and he was the vision of collectedness, cold and expressionless as always.

Houki disliked the man, and would have even if he was not layered with a kind of darkness. He had been in the service of the imperial family for a long time, from almost as long ago as she had become the Dowager Empress. His name was Hong Jiu (2), though it was rare that anyone called him that anymore. He had become the prime minister not long after Boushin had come to the throne and since then, or so Houki now believed, the center had somehow becomes less stable.

Perhaps it was only because Hikari had looked so convinced about him being someone 'evil' that Houki found herself even more wary of him than she normally was. She did not like to think of people as good and bad, and nothing in between - it took a kind of naivete she could no longer honestly claim. But he had never inspired trust, in the way that a person who means you harm usually lets you know about it, if you are willing to listen a little more carefully.

She was not bothered, not as much as she would have been before Boushin had taken his rightful place as king. Even though the prime minister was right, they both knew that he did not have the authority to override her command. Not yet, anyway. Not while Boushin retained some of his faith in his father's legacy. Sometimes, Houki wondered if the time of the warriors and four gods was truly over. The priestesses had all come and gone, and as a new evil grew over the lands, no one quite knew what to believe in anymore. She no longer went to the shrine, for it was terribly sad to think of everything that Saihitei had stood for as having become obsolete. Her own son had turned away from her, and she knew that only a fraction of the cause of this was the prime minister's fault.

"I will have her interrogated, Empress," he said, looking at her through eyes as dark as the night. "How long do you believe you can protect criminals, Empress? Surely, you must see, it is wiser to concede to-"

"Do not forget, Shushou-sama, that I too have a little authority as the mother of the emperor," she reminded him, still speaking calmly. It had taken her years to master the art of not being bothered by people who tried to intimidate her, and she knew she had little to lose. Even if she was not on the most solid grounds, she could hold her own for a while. "As I have said, you can ask her anything you like, but you shall do that here, in my presence."

He stood, still expressionless, and crossed the room to where she stood. Houki did not move, and it was only partly because she knew that giving a man like him clear indication that she was afraid would work against her. He stopped only when he was about two feet from her, altogether too close for comfort, and alarmingly bold.

As his eyes bored into her, she raised her chin just slightly. "You are lying," he said, softly. "We both know this will not last - your cause, your imagined purpose... it does not exist. And the longer you fight it, Empress, the more... painful it will be in the end."

"Are you threatening me?" she asked, mildly, as though she found this only slightly interesting.

But he smiled, a cold and furious sort of smile. Though he was short for a man, and slightly rotund as was traditional for most well-fed state officials to be, the expression chilled her just a little. "I suppose you think you can play this game with me, because you have nothing to lose," he said, his voice brittle. Shocking her into silence, he stepped forward and took her arm, and for a moment, Houki found herself falling, though she was dimly aware of remaining standing. A terrible sinking feeling was grappling at her, as though trying to convince her that this was over and she would lose. Without meanig to, she gasped, and he smirked. "But you, my lady, have everything to lose."

It was fortunate that the door swung open then, forcing the man to release her arm and move away from her abruptly. "What is it?" he snapped.

If the soldier thought there was anything odd about the prime minister standing at such close quarters to her, he did nothing to indicate it. "Forgive me, Shushou!" he said, instead, his eyes darting from the prime minister to the empress and then back again. "But please come quickly! The Emperor is calling for you! Something - someone strange has appeared."

Houki looked up in alarm. Something strange? Surely, it could not be Hikari and Reishun back already. She caught the prime minister looking at her, almost triumphant, and frowned. "Excuse me, Empress," he said, bowing respectfully and making her want to step away from him.

But he straightened and left, leaving her to catch herself. What on earth had he done? She rubbed her arm where he had touched her, feeling dizzy and more than a little nauseous. Hikari could not have been right, could she? Houki did not know how it was possible, but a rush of fear washed over as she considered it. He had been here when Hikari said they had been attacked. She knew he had, for Boushin, him and a few others had been in counsel over Eian's disappearance. But that terrible feeling, had he caused it, simply by touching her? She shuddered, and then shook herself. She would go and see who this strange person was for herself. He may have been right about her having enough to lose to not be reckless, but she would not back down.

By the time she reached the throne room, chaos had unfolded over the palace - but out of respect, it had done so in a polite and respectful and quiet sort of manner. The whispers amongst the soldiers and serving ladies died a little as she moved through the corridor to enter the courtroom. The emperor sat at his throne, looking as though he was torn in between great joy and terrible suspicion. All his ministers had assembled and though they were murmuring, as a woman spoke, her voice clear and excited. Though it had changed as Houki's had over the years, she could not mistake the sound.

"...well, you have to believe me - I'm sure some of you remember, don't you? I remember you, anyway, Boushi- I mean Emperor!" she said, hurriedly as several eyebrows shot up. "Forgive me, but I do remember you from when you were very little and had the teddy bear-"

"Oh, this is ridiculous, Heika! Why would the priestess of Suzaku arrive here now, when nothing is plaguing the country?"

"You're a lot less friendly than I remember, though."

Houki had by now moved in and crossed the last of the noblemen who had gathered there for the weekly meeting. In the center of the room, lit by the the golden lamps and lines by the deep red tapestries which all carried symbols of Suzaku's power, stood a woman in strange clothing - sort of like the men's clothes that Sukunami Taka had worn the last time Houki had seen him, almost two decades ago now - who was carrying a bundle of something wrapped in silk. She had changed, of course - her face had thinned and her body grown rounder and more curvy as a woman's, rather than a child's. But she was the same person as Houki remembered and there was no mistaking it. The priestess of Suzaku.

* * *

Arudo certainly had changed over the last twenty years, undeniably. There were a lot more people, so many that it made one thankful that the city was surrounded primarily by nothing at all and could expand without terrible problems. Of course, there were other problems, like the water. That had always been a problem in Sairou, even though the few rivers they had were abundant and perennial. Normally, this problem would have been dealt with through canals and other systems of irrigation, but the expansion had happened so very quickly that nothing had been done very systematically about it. Indeed, Arudo was huge and intimidating, but when you got down to it, it was really just one very big mess.

The houses were piled atop one another, so haphazardly that they almost looked like lopsided boxes. Most of the houses on the outskirts were not permanent residences. "It's like an ancient Chinese slum," Taka had said, with some disdain and alarm, and Tasuki had nodded (although what did he mean 'ancient'?).

Tamahome's family had been very poor - more than Tasuki's, whose family was not remotely as well off as, say, Nuriko's had been, but they had never gone hungry per se. They had never had to struggle through a winter, although that could have been because they were so busy beating each other up. But Tamahome's family had lived in a very tiny, very poor village - or so Nuriko had told him anyway, very many years ago, while sailing for Hokkan. Which had explained a lot about Tamahome's stingy attitude. He probably hated being in this place, where you could smell the poverty and the lack of planning, as you could in any slum. Taka wasn't stingy, as Tamahome had been, but he certainly did not like the idea of having no money. Tasuki could understand - why would you want something like this for your family and yourself?

As they moved towards the center of the city (having left their horses in the forest nearby) though, it became a little bit more loud, a lot more crowded, but substantially cleaner. These were more permanent houses, of people who would have been the poorest in the city until the slums had come up. The streets, it seemed, had become narrower, the houses smaller, and the people had multiplied exponentially. Taka, who had a horrible sense of encroaching modernity, shook his head. "What happened here?"

"Whaddya think?" said Tasuki, who was not himself bothered as much as he was just happy to see human beings in the vicinity. After three days of looking at nothing but stretches of desert, Tasuki found that the sheer number of people around him was refreshing. In about twenty minutes, he would want to kill everyone because of the crowding, but he did enjoy the noise and the bustle. It sounded like life - busy, noisy, annoying life. "Arudo became rich, everythin' else became poorer and here we are, smellin' the fruits of the royal family's moronic %*%() plannin' - _oy_!" he yelped, as an emaciated looking beggar reached for his coat and yanked. "Let go ya weirdo!"

"_Money_," the beggar cut to the chase, slurring a little over his words. You had to appreciate the straightforwardness, even if you couldn't really appreciate the over-observant manner in which the beggar's eyes snaked over the two Suzaku seishi. The beggar looked as though he had met the wrong end of a horse - and as though that had been several days ago, because there was, about him, a distinctive smell of a kind that indicated fermentation - but his eyes were certainly very alert. Tasuki yanked at his coat and the beggar yanked back. "You look like you've travelled from a foreign land, young sirs... you must have some money."

"We're not gonna give it to you, you %)#%*)$* degenerate!" Taka was tapping him on the shoulder, but Tasuki ignored him. There was a time and place for the voice of reason and this was NOT it.

"Byakko will watch over those who help the needy!"

"We don't need $)#%(^*#( Byakko, let %)*)$) go!"

But the beggar was ludicrously strong, and yanked Tasuki closer, much to the bandit's chagrin. "I can curse your family!" he threatened, with an ominous slur and a little dribble.

"Oh yeah! Well, go ahead! My nieces are reincarnations of the evil god Tenkou themselves!"

"I can curse _you_!" yelled the beggar, losing his temper and becoming slightly hysterical. "Damn miserly tourists! Can't spare a damn coin for a poor hungry man! I hope you drown in the waters of the vast and terrible oceans of gloom! I hope you burn on the fires of Mt. Reikaku! I curse you!"

And eh would have gone on in this vein, had Tasuki not suddenly bent down and yanked him to his feet by the collar. "Fires of Mt. Reikaku!" he demanded.

"Yesss," hissed the beggar, giving him a look of deep, unadulterated loathing. "There is an evil bandit who lives on those mountains, who can breathe fire and he will curse you if you don't give me some money, you foul, stinking, miserly, evil, travelling cockroach!"

Tasuki stared at him for a moment, and then threw his head back and roared with laughter. He reached into his belt and took out a coin, tossing it at the beggar, who caught it with remarkable dexterity. "There ya go, #)*(# freak!" he said, congenially, while Taka rubbed his face.

"Arigatouuu!" said the beggar, with an equable grin, collapsing on his skinny legs again and resuming his pathetic position on the side of the road. "Where ya comin' from?"

Taka put a hand on Tasuki's shoulder. "Kutou," he said, nodding. "We've come from Kutou."

"Coats look like Kounan," muttered the beggar, smirking. "But I bet you picked up the clothes on the way here."

"Yeah," said Taka, slightly uneasy, "We weren't expecting the cold nights in Sairou. Anyway, we should go now!" Steering a still amused Tasuki away, he began to walk down the road.

But the beggar's voice stopped him. "If you lose something important, come back to Jungney(1) here!"

Stunned, Tasuki and Taka both turned, but the beggar had already grabbed an old lady's skirt and was now being beaten with her stick. They both turned away slowly.

"%*%&(## weird," muttered Tasuki.

"Very odd," agreed Taka, shaking his head to dispell the unease. He turned around a corner almost absently as they navigated their way towards where they knew Tokaki and Subaru's home was. They breathed slightly easier once they had stepped into the quieter parts of the city, where the government officials and monasteries were, and the oddness of the the beggar's comment dissipating somewhat. It meant nothing, surely. Of course, that usually meant that it was either the rambling of a drunken degenrate or that... well, that it Mean Something. Taka had no idea why this universe wasn't a little more clear about its intentions.

Subaru and Tokaki lived at the edge of the city, a little cut off and right next to the forest. Though the path to their house was much cleaner, quieter and wider than the rest of the city, they noted the difference. As they arrived at the edge of the forest, they looked around, slightly confused. Towards the north, against the mountainside, were the ruins of the temple where the Byakko shinzaho had been hidden, with Tatara. "So," said Taka, "their home should be right-"

"You PERVERTED BASTARD!" A shrill female voice cut him off. "Get out of my house RIGHT now!"

"There it is," observed Tasuki, with a pleased grin.

Without further discussion, they both ambled along down towards the source of this racket. It became evident in a little while.

"No, no NO I will not listen to your lame excuses Tokaki! You're a loathsome perverted foul old man and I don't want you anywhere near this house- NO DO NOT TOUCH ME! ARGH!"

"But my dear-"

This was followed by the distinctive sound of a plate meeting a Byakko seishi's head. Taka and Tasuki exchanged a look and, wisely, paused right outside the stone gate of the large doujo that was Tokaki and Subaru's home. A mutual understanding passed between them: although they were very worried about Chichiri, of course, and about rescuing Hikari, it would be useless to get themselves killed by encountering the wrath of a furious wife. They could wait, really.

"No don't throw the-"

Another loud sound followed, like something large, breakable and painful crashing to the floor, sealing their decision, and they leaned against the wall, crossing their arms across their chest.

"...okay, throw it if you like-"

"OUT! _GET OUT!_"

Had they not known that the old wrinkled man that came flying out was a Byakko seishi, they would have been surprised by the speed at which he came hurtling out of the gate. He looked really old and worn out, wrinkled to the point of bring nearly as horrific as Taiitsukun. Although his crinkly eyes were almost hidden now, one could see the life in them, the bright and slightly perverted sense of optimism. Of course, you had to look beyond the long white beard to see that, really. Altogether, he looked like a very knowledgeable and wise old man. It was just the fact that he was shuddering in fear from his wife that sort of put a damper on this image.

"Alright, I'll see you later tonight, darling!" he yelled, waving with a fake, nervous sort of grin.

"Oh _yeah_!" Subaru yelled back. "_We'll see about that!"_

The door slammed and Tokaki stood on the street, looking pained. "Talk about unreasonable," he muttered, "it was only a small grope."

"Ahem," said Taka, delicately, for the old man had not yet caught sight of them, "marital problems, Tokaki-sensei?"

"Oh no," said the old man, with a confident swagger. "Not at all. She does doesn't like it when I grab a butt that's not hers, you know. Women!" Then he turned and squinted. "Oro!" he said, his face breaking out into a grin. "It's- is that you, Tamahome?"

"Er, yes, but I'm ... it's Tak-"

Tokaki ignored the mumbling and pushed aside Taka's respectful hand to grab him around the neck and administer something along the lines of a noogie. It was, Taka reflected, cringing and trying to yank his head out of strong grip, one way of breaking the ice. "What the hell are you doing here now? Baka! I know I said to come by and see us, when it was all over, but it's been over eighteen years! Damn kids. We could be dead by now! We're a hundred and bloody thirty (ish)! Talk about tardy... And you!" He finally let go of Taka's head, much to the latter's relief. "Tasuki-chan! How are the merry bandits if Re-"

"_SHH_!" said Tasuki, slapping Tokaki on the back cheerfully, effectively detracting him from all possible noogies. "We have to be subtle!"

"Tasuki!" cried Taka, aghast.

"Oh, relax!" he said, now slapping Taka on the back, still cheerfully. "Obake-chan here's got 'is panties in a knot!"

Taka looked at him in alarm. That was subtle?

Tokaki's bushy eyebrows were now in motion, wiggling to the left and then to the right as he considered them. "Ohhh, it's like that, is it? Everytime I see you, you lot are in trouble. Okay, come on in!" Tokaki grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks and dragged them along. "Now she HAS to let me back inside!"

"Oy, are you sure, Tokaki-sensei?" asked Tasuki, as Tokaki dragged them both along with surprising strength. It may not have been impossible to break out of his grip, but it certainly would have required a certain amount of painful maneuvering. "Maybe it's a great idea to tickle the sleeping dragon - or in this case the wide-awake and very angry dragon..."

"Oh, I'm sure," said Tokaki, confidently. You had to admire his spirit, really. "She loves Tamahome, so we'll just push him at her."

Taka blanched. "Er..."

"Wait, why the %*%*#( doesn't she like me as much as this %*%*( ?" blinked Tasuki, frowning.

"Potty-mouth," explained Tokaki. "Women, ya know? Anyway, since when have you become so afraid of women, Tasuki?"

"He's in love," Taka announced, and had the pleasure of watching Tasuki go very red.

"I am NOT. She's just taking care of my gang for a while! When will you get tha' through yer %*%&() head, damn it?"

"See?" said Taka, loking at Tokaki, who nodded in agreement. "He's in love."

"Yes, he has that distinct colouring of 'stupid'," agreed Tokaki, dragging them up the stairs to the porch. "It's a sure sign of love - you had it all over you when you were here last. Damn boy, never listening to your elders. How's the wife, Tamahome?"

"She's great!" said Taka, grinning, for he had no way of knowing that she had landed in Kounan and knocked out Nuriko's older brother with a pot. "We have a daughter, now," he added, his grin fading slightly as he thought of Hikari again.

"Oh really?" asked Tokaki, banging on the door. "Is she hot?"

"HEY!" roared Taka, but the door opened and he found himself thrust towards an infuriated Subaru.

As it turned out, though, she did let them inside, even Tokaki, who was subjected to a very angry look, but who did gracefully colour himself 'stupid'. She drew Taka into a hug and berated him for coming to visit so late ("We could have been dead by now! Do you think we're getting any younger?") and proceeded to fuss about him losing weight and not taking care of himself, though she said she blamed Miaka for being such a bad cook. At this, Taka, who was loyal but honest, cringed and said nothing). Then, she hugged Tasuki, though the red haired bandit looked very alarmed for it and patted her awkwardly on the head. And, lastly, she smacked Tokaki on the side of his head and threw him a look of deep loathing before stalking away from him. Really, it was quite a mystery why she'd married him in the first place, but it seemed to work.

An hour later, they were laundered and fed, and if they were not particularly rested, they did feel much better in general. The old couple joined them and they walked along the stream to the back of the large house. Taka had never wondered before what Tokaki and Subaru did, really, that brought them so much wealth and prosperity, and though he did wonder now, he could not bring himself to ask as much - it was, after all, quite rude. But he did wonder. Their house was large - enough, certainly, to accomodate five exhausted Suzaku warriors, as he remembered clearly. Located right next to the river, the rear of the house faced the stretch of the forest as the mountain upon which the ruins of Byakko's temple still lay, crumbled from the summoning of Seiryuu.

"It was never repaired," he observed, looking it the ruins. To the right was the pagoda he remembered just as clearly, though it stood intact and still slightly foreboding.

"No," said Tokaki, who was puffing on a pipe of tobacco now. He smelt quite like Taka's father had, though Taka did not mention that. You didn't get too fuzzy with a guy who could kick your behind with a teaspoon, and even if he didn't, that sort of thing always made things a little awkward. "They talked about repairing the temple for a while, but the royal family is too busy controlling trade routes to concentrate on their own roots. They still wear the badge of the White Tiger, but they do not have any loyalty to him. We are," he patted Subaru on the shoulder, and she slapped his hand away, "going to be forgotten - the gods, the seishi, the priestesses... everyone. This land does not remember how Byakko saved it a hundred years ago."

"There he goes again," said Subaru, rolling her eyes heavenwards. "Why are you so negative? You said Tamahome and Miaka would not be able to be together, and they are! And I've told time and again, things are changing. No one is forgotten as long as there's one idiot to stand for it! And I mean," she added, looking at Taka, "that's why you're here."

"I'm the biggest idiot here?" asked Taka, offended. "What about the redheaded potty-mouth!"

"No- ohhh, you know what I meant! Well, I don't really know why you're here, exactly, but you are - so it much mean something, right?" Subaru finished, looking at him anxiously. "Honestly, Tokaki, if you don't have a butt to grab you're not happy."

Tokaki looked as though he was considering a reply, but Taka, out of filial loyalty to his old teacher, stepped in. "Yes," he said, looking at the old woman. She looked back at him, and looked so wise and sensible and understanding that Taka nearly told her everything. It was difficult for him not to, for he was not a tactical genius or a strategic expert. His seishi was not to think, like Chiriko, but to blast anything in his path, damn it - he wasn't designed for subtlety. But he held himself back. Although Tokaki had not sounded too much in favour of the royal family, that was no reason to make assumptions, was it? After all, he reasoned, Tokaki found most things rather unfavourable, unless they were attached to a female. But though it was hard and Tamahome's memories - which were of course his own memories - told him to trust these people, he couldn't afford to make one wrong move when it came to his daugther, and, of course, Chichiri...

"His daughter is %^&%*#( missing," said Tasuki, cheerfully.

"Tasuki!" yelped Taka, aggrieved.

"What?" asked Subaru, aghast, touching his arm in concern. "What happened?"

"She appeared in this world, near Chichiri, and then Chichiri was %*%&(%( captured by the damned commander of Sairou's %*^*#( army," filled in Tasuki, despite Taka's open-mouthed horror.

"We're supposed to be SUBTLE!" Taka yelled.

"I _am _bein' %&%((# subtle," said Tasuki, placidly, patting Taka on the head. "So we're here to ask you for help about how to break into that ^#)%*) palace."

"Were you dropped on the head as a child?"

"What do you mean 'captured'?" demanded Tokaki, puffing smoke furiously through his pipe so he looked like a very angry train engine. "And why wouldn't you tell us this to begin with, Tamahome?"

"Well, I-"

"He's gotten it in his head tha' you guys were followin' tha' evil $&(($ commander," supplied Tasuki, who was apparently feeling very chatty. Taka went very red. "But that's ridiculous, because you guys are good guys and he is not. So problem solved! Anyway, you can't blame 'im, he lost 'is kid an' landed on me an' we still have no %**()$ where Hikari-chan is!"

Subaru's expression was pure concern. "Oh my goodness," she said.

"My goodness, my %*%," snapped Tokaki. "How dare you come here and then insult us by not being clear and honest!"

"_Tokaki_," growled Subaru, and that was the end of that. She was being angry today, not him. She turned to Taka, "You poor thing! Of course we'll help you. Strange things have been happening for a long time now in Sairou, and we know that the royal family has everything to do with it. We do not honour those who the enemies of the four gods."

"Damn straight," muttered Tokaki. "I don't know what's going on in there, but strange things have started to happen lately. It's only when the gods are in need of terrestrial assistance that the seishi are reborn, after all. Your country too has witnessed such rebirths, hasn't it?"

"That's tru- wait a minute, you're saying the Byakko seishi have been reborn?" asked Tasuki, quirking an eyebrow.

"Not all," said Subaru. "Only two, as far as we know. But it is possible they returned. The Byakko seishi were all very loyal to their priestess." She made a face as Tokaki cleared his throat. "Alright, mostly, but that was a misunderstanding with Toroki-kun and Suzuno-chan-"

"So Tatara was..."

"No," said Tokaki, decidedly. He looked exactly as furious as he had looked when Tamahome had told him that it was too late for him to intervene in his relationship with Miaka, all those years ago, but it was still fairly alarming. Taka could not see why, though the redheaded potty-mouth next to him could have told him. Living without one's true love was agonising - but to watch a friend go through such agony without any means to help them was worse. "He waited a very long time to be reunited with the woman he loved. But a couple of others, yes, even if they don't always remember their past lives."

"Or at all," said Subaru, shaking her head. "Always stubborn..."

"A few years ago, it started to happen," explained Tokaki, for Taka and Tasuki were looking confused. "The royal family consolidated its power, mostly because of Commander Jiang. There is something very amiss about that man, and we are not sure what it is. But if he has captured Chichiri then..." Tokaki looked grim. "They've started to expand, but not in an honourable manner or for the benefit of the country. Actually, it's not clear what they want or what they're doing, because they've resorted to such politics of secrecy."

Taka nodded. "We saw a large number of Sairou camps on the way here - soldiers just walking around in Kounan."

"And in the meanwhile," Subaru added, "they weaken the center."

The civil war in Kutou is," he added, grimly, while Subaru shook her head again, sorrowfully, "not entirely their doing, but they did certainly contribute to it, providing weapons and soldiers when needed, playing one tribe against another. Kounan too ... even if most people don't know it yet. The Empress does, but only because my beautiful, understanding and ever-forgiving wife has been in touch with her-"

"Houki-sama?"

"Yes," said Subaru, with a smile. "She is a wise woman. I could show you her letters - they are so very subtle and so very informative. And of course she had a very nice husband whose hands never roamed to new pastures out of boredom."

Tokaki's ominous, grim expression altered into a plaintive and childish one. "Dearest, I wasn't bored-"

Subaru ignored him, magnificently. "She has been telling me about the developments in the court - it is no longer a safe or friendly place for Suzaku warriors, I can tell you that. The Byakko seishi do not support the royal family; they stand for the land of Sairou. As you should well know, Taka," she said, kindly, though the slight warning note in her voice was distinct. "I know you would worry about your daughter, and I assure you we will help you, but you have to tell us everything. And in turn, we can tell you useful things as well. Such as, if Jiang worked out that the Shinzahos were no longer in Eiyou-"

"Wait," said Tasuki, suddenly. "What? Where the $*%( are they, if they're not in Eiyou?"

"Well," said Subaru, frowning at his language, much to his total lack of awareness, "if she took my advice seriously, then they have been hidden away, far from Eiyou."

"But what were they doing there in the first place?" asked Taka, a sense of foreboding at the pit of his stomach.

"Chichiri and I, we - well, Taiitsukun ^*#(%# made us go and look for them, and the safest place was the palace. But the bad guys are there too?" Despite himself, Taka had to hide a smile. Tasuki did have a tendency to be very blunt and black-and-white about most things. "That's really $*%*( bad Subaru-sama!"

"So it seems... and if Chichiri has been captured then... well, then it could be very bad, you see? All these things... the Shinzahos, the implicit assault on Kutou and Kounan... these are symptoms. I don't think it's a common power struggle, really. At least we know that the Suzaku Shinzaho is safe, right?"

Taka looked at Subaru, the helplessness growing once more. "Oh no," she said, staring at him.

"What? What he $%#^^ do you mean '_oh no_'? That doesn't sound good..."

"She means, you idiot," said Tokaki, in a decisively ominous manner, "that the fouth Shinzaho is here, and since Taka here has lost his daughter, we do not know where it is."

It took Tasuki a couple of moments to put it together, as Taka grimaced. And when he did, he turned to glare at Taka. "What?" he demanded/

"You know," added Tokaki, puffing his cigar, "it makes some more sense now, that your daughter was drawn to this universe - how long did you think you would be able to keep her out?"

Taka shook his head, unable to muster the energy to hate Tokaki for being right, but before he could say anything, Tasuki interrupted.

"Just when were you planning to say something about that, Taka? You %*%*(# moron," he added, as an afterthought. And it wasn't, Taka noted, all affectionate. Nor would anything he said in the next few minutes be met with any great enthusiasm, he knew.

"Don't assume you're too old to be whipped as punishment," muttered Subaru, somewhat alarmingly.

"It is remarkably foolish-"

"Okay! Alright!" said Taka, raising both hands and looking at three disappointed faces with a twisted feeling in his gut. "I know I should have said something but I didn't- look, I didn't want this to be about her being ... who she is," he finished, frowning, aware of three pairs of eyes looking at him as he avoided looking back.A few moments passed, before the silence broke, and it was Tasuki who spoke.

"You didn't tell her _anything_, did you?"

It was not easy to answer that question, but in the end it was just one word. "No," said Taka, meeting Tasuki's slightly hurt eyes, "we didn't. We- we were afraid of this, Tasuki..."

"So she knows nothing about who she is?" asked Tasuki, giving him a cold stare that put the fury in his eyes on the that they had first met to shame. "You didn't tell her about the people who died because they believed in the two of you? You didn't tell her about Chiriko or Nuriko, or Hotohori-sama, or ... or, hell, even your family? Why?"

Taka looked at his friend, grateful at least that he could be counted on to yell when he was angry, if nothing else. But would he understand? Would Taka himself have understood? He did not know. "We were _afraid_, Tasuki. I know it's stupid, but it's her destiny, right?" Especially given Taka's past experiences with Miaka's mother, Taka had never expected to play the role of the paranoid parent. "I understand now... why Miaka's mother was so angry when we told her we were getting married. Miaka was just fifteen - Hikari is even younger. It wasn't that she was angry because she thought Miaka couldn't take care of herself. It was that she was scared, because she was terrified that once Miaka left she would not return, and Hikari- Hikari is not..."

"She s a part of this world," finished Tokaki, clearly and without batting an eyelid, such that Taka actually wondered if he had practiced being such a wonderful deliverer of bad news.

"And we are not," he said, though he did not want to have this talk. He didn't want to even remotely touch on the possibility that 'rescuing his daughter from the book' was an invalid exercise because she belonged here. "Do you see, Tasuki?" asked Taka, tentatively, of the bandit who was still staring at him with furious eyes.

"No," he said, after a minute. Taka sighed. "You're a large number of stupid moronic things, Taka, but I never thought you would be a %*%&#( coward. What do you think you've done? Do you think this is better, that she doesn't %&%*#( know? How could you- I don' get it! How could you make them forgotten? I don't give a rat's behind how hard it is and how much you think you'll %*%)*# lose! All you are is a coward!" Tasuki breathed out, furious. Then he swallowed. "And if I didn't have to get Chichiri out, I would push you in that river?"

"It's about three feet deep here," Tokaki supplied, unhelpfully.

"_Whatever_! The point is I can't, because you're useful and Chichiri is a good %*%) friend even if he looks like a %*%*( fox, so I'm going to help. But-" Tasuki growled, frustrated and infuriated and REALLY PISSED OFF that he didn't really have the words to express this. "But you suck, okay?"

Taka cringed. "Okay..."

"Fine," Tasuki snapped, and turned his back on him. "Now what the %*%* are we going to do about that %$*($* fortress?"

* * *

**Author's notes:** Anyone see major 'accidentally aimed' Rekka-Shinen's in Taka's immediate future? I do! :D Hope you enjoyed this chapter - this is rightfully a part of chapter 13, but again, I'm not too fond of long chapters. I mean I love reading them, but I don't like writing them. *basks in hypocrisy* Even so, this turned out to be longer. This is probably also because I wrote out a lecture about Sairou's economy in the first part. But I blame Taka. *nods*

Oh and this LOOOOOOOOOOOONG chapter (with too much dialogue) and double update is my way of flaking out of posting next week, because I'm going to be away and I don't know how much time I'll have. But I'll do my best - this I promise to myself anyway.

Btw, there was a mistake in the last chapter, which I have corrected (and marked with asterixes) - but it would be worth looking at that in case you haven't because then the part about Houki may make less sense.

And that's it for now! Thanks for reading! And remember, reviews are an awesome thing. :D I would bake cookies for the awesome people who review stuff except... then I would have to eat all of them because you're not here. But I have cookie-related thoughts about reviewers and that is GOOD KARMA. Right?

**Notes:**  
1) _Jungney _- Tibetan name meaning "source" or "origin". It is pronounced 'djoon-ay'. :)  
2) _Jiu _is a weird name, but I don't understand Chinese enough to have a CLEVER way of saying what I want to say there. *nods*

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	16. 15 Tall Tales

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Tall Tales**

* * *

_Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning. _

~ Joan D. Vinge ~

* * *

A single ray of sunshine fell upon the piglet that was staring at her disgustedly.

Now, pigs were auspicious beings, but they were very smelly and being stared at by a pig was, Reishun discovered, a really uncomfortable experience. She was covered in filth that carried an unspeakable aroma, her butt was planted in a slush-like solution of said filth, and she was being stared at by a piglet.

Nyan Nyan floated around her head in a circle once, peering at her with great worry. "Nuriko-chan okay?" she asked, and as Reishun nodded blankly, floated away, saying, "Kowaiineechan okay?"

Somewhere in the vicinity, Hikari exploded. "Nooooo! Nononono NO NYAN NYAN WHY DID YOU DO THAT? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO FIND OUT HOW TO GET THOSE DAMN- ugh! UGH! NOOO!" she wailed, as though a blatant denial of what was would just undo it. "And where on EARTH have you planted us? A pig-pen? Nyan Nyan, what the HELL!"

Reishun cringed, as the pig contunued to stare at her, and the noise levels around her rose infinitely.

"Kowaiineechan no yell please!"

"I will yell! Do you have any idea what we're supposed to do now?"

"Kowaiineechan saaaafe!"

"Safe but STUPID. Where are we supposed to go, Nyan Nyan! Did you think about that at all!"

"Kowaiineechan will know!"

"My -" Hikari swore, and for a thirteen-year-old, it wasn't half bad and quite unnecessarily elaborate.

Reishun would have asked her where she'd picked that kind of language up and smacked her behind for it, but she was distracted by the piercing, judgmental look of the piglet. And when, as she looked on, a second piglet joined the first in giving her gravely a profoundly distasteful look, Reishun began to wonder if crying in front of a thirteen-year-old was really all that bad a thing. Clearly, Hikari was fine. She was yelling and being logical and basically in her element. And sure, she would be called a useless snivelling upper class snotty wench who hadn't had the slightest idea about what she was getting herself into, but that wasn't really at all far from the truth. She hadn't signed up for this - not for enemies she could not throw alarmingly large boulders at and flatten them, not for not entirely loathing her imagined 'rival' for Shu's affections (more like 'spiritual affiliations', perhaps), and certainly not for being dirtier than two young and remarkably filthy piglets.

"NOT NICE NOT NICE!" screamed Nyan Nyan, in what was probably a rage by her standards, but had the rough form and shape of a minor and not very articulate tantrum. She whizzed around furiously, flying past Reishun's face several times, still crying, "NOT NICE NOT NICE NOT NICE NOT NICE!" Until suddenly she howled in audible frustration and popped back into her orb form, flying directly at Hikari's head, just as a young farmer turned up around the corner, weilding a stick and yelling incoherently.

The essence of it, Reishun caught as Hikari fell over with an indignant 'OW!' and landed face first in the filth, was that he wanted them to leave. Except Reishun couldn't quite feel her legs or arms or body. All she could feel was the really, really gross dirt.

"What, are you DEAF? Get out of my pig-pen!"

Hikari emergd, rubbing the filth off her now much abused nose. "Yeah, yeah, we heard you," she muttered, getting up.

"OUT! Out before I call everyone in the village!" yelled the farmer, possibly not invading the pen himself because of the filth. The pigs only seemed to take great pleasure in this, but even this couldn't spur Reishun into motion. Where were her feet? "I'll call the chief! I'll call my grandmother!"

"FOR GOD'S SAKE MAN, WE GET IT!" bellowed Hikari, exasperated. "We're leaving! Come on Reishun! You'd think we _wanted_ to be here- oy," she stopped, finally realising that her companion had become somewhat catatonic and did not appear to want to move at all. "Oy, Reishun?" A filthy hand waved in front of her face and Reishun turned, finally, to look at the dirt covered Hikari, pure horror on her face. "What?" asked Hikari, alarmed too. "Are you okay?"

Reishun nodded, raising her own hand to look at it. Her expression acquired a profoundly agonised character and Hikari, miraculously, understood. "Dirt?" she asked, peering at Reishun, who shuddered. "Okay, okay... Don't panic- oy, you!" she jerked her head at the farmer, sending a shower of dirt drops towards his general direction.

"_What_?" he demanded, incredulous and outraged. "Get out!"

"We _are_ getting out - is there somewhere we can wash up here?"

"No way!"

Hikari straightened, and if Reishun hadn't been so traumatised, she would have noticed that the girl actually looked taller than she was. She had 'drawn herself to her full height', so to speak, and it was a fairly momentous thing for someone who had been whining and freaking out for the most of her stay in Kounan. Reishun missed it entirely.

"Listen, you horrible man. We are getting out of your stupid pig pen, because believe it or not, this _isn't_ first class accomodation and we didn't choose to land here! Now I'd suggest you stop being such a pig yourself and tell us now: where can we wash up!"

This fine display made no difference to the farmer, who raised both eyebrows and glowered at Hikari, who glared back. They remained silently angry for a whole minute, before he growled. "River," he said, gruffly, jerking his head to the right. "One mile, that way. Now get out before I get my grandmother."

"Fine!" snapped Hikari, and turned to Reishun. Since the older girl was still not moving, she reached for her arm, but the second she touched her, she realised this had been a terrible mistake.

"_DON'T TOUCH ME!_" cried Reishun, suddenly, in a very high-pitched, feminine and more than a little terrified sort of voice. "Don't do anything! I'm getting up! Gah!" It was with a great effort that she did get up, the slime slinking about her hair and sliding along her back. Reishun would have been sick if she'd thought it would do her any good, but it wouldn't. Trying to touch as little of the ground and herself and, really, anything as possible, she stood, shakily, and took two very tentative steps towards the gate where the man stood. Then she turned and shook her fist. "DAMN PIGS!" she yelled, and then, with some relief, and much to everyone else's mortification, burst into tears.

* * *

It was two hours later, when they were a more recognisable shade of skin, that Hikari decided it was safe to speak to Reishun. The older girl had said nothing after calming down somewhat, which was not particularly surprising. Hikari was not a cleanliness freak, but she knew people who could be. Hanako, for instance, would never be caught dead playing in the dirt (though they had not been friends in kindergarten, so Hikari had no way of knowing if like most normal people, Hanako had gone through a similar phase. It occured to her now that if Hanako had been the one to fall into the book, she may have spent less time panicking about the yellw dragon and his absurd request, and more time panicking about the fact that she'd not had a shower in four days.

"Um, Reishun?" began Hikari, snapping Reishun's very concentrated attention away from scrubbing the strands of imaginary dirt from her already scrubbed clothes. She would have looked a lot more ridiculous if she hadn't been so beautiful, Hikari thought, with some irritation. She was standing in the river, mostly unclad and bedraggled and wet, scrubbing her clothes with a kind of neurotic fervour. Spending the night in prison, hurtling through the realms at top speed and rolling around in muck had left her dirty; certainly, no one had come out of that pig pen looking wonderful. But she still looked _artistically _dirty, as though it had all been a part of the plan. Now, with her long tresses soaking and her cheeks flushed, she looked like a painting. Hikari was very glad she'd freaked out about the dirt enough to cry, because otherwise, she would have been compelled to loathe her.

"I don't like dirt, okay?" she said, defensively, turning back to her clothes, which she proceeded to scrub in the clear water of the seemingly calm river.

"No, I... gathered as much," said Hikari, tactfully.

"I know it's a little weird."

"I know that as well."

"And I know I'm acting spoilt when I called you a spoilt kid before. And you _are_," said Reishun, edging towards a pout. It was a little galling to be the adult who was freaking out semi-naked in the river while the much younger and shorter person she was supposed to be protecting, allegedly, sat very calmly, fully-clothed on the banks, drying off in the morning sun - and feeling just as complacent as Reishun felt unsettled. "I mean you crib about everything. I only crib about dirt. And the fact that you're not making any sense. And that you were _bonding_ with _that woman_-"

Hikari tilted her head, torn between amusement and frustration. "Isn't there some kind of crime about speaking out against your ruler?"

"She's not the ruler anymore," muttered Reishun, but did have the good grace to turn somewhat red. "Fine! I get it-"

"Could you," said Hikari, rolling her eyes, "stop freaking out? I don't care. You're clean now and it's all done and over with, and I understand that you're jealous-"

"I am not jealous."

Hikari raised both her eyebrows. "Reishun - where _the hell _are we?" she said, pointedly, as though trying to remind her of the more serious problems.

This seemed to nudge Reishun back to her old down-to-earth self. "Nyan Nyan would have told us if you hadn't pissed her off," she said, flatly. Hikari didn't know if she should have felt annoyed about having her worries reduced to naught by a woman who was panicking about dirt or pleased that she had become distracted from the adolescent angst part of the story. "And I am not jealous," she muttered, making Hikari's shoulders slump.

"_Reishunnnnn_," the younger girl whined. "What are we going to _dooo_!"

"Okay, alright, just - let me ... let me finish this and get dressed. Nyan Nyan?" Of course, at her calling the orb-version of the little girl floated right up. "Where are we?" she asked, continuing to wash her clothes.

"Shoryuu river, Nuriko-chan!"

"There we go," said Reishun, throwing Hikari a pleased look.

"...and where the hell is that?" aked Hikari, grumpily, eyeing the floating girl, who eyed her back. They had reached a kind of limit with one another, it seemed, an inevitable barrier when two people of exactly opposite dispositions came together. Admittedly, Nyan Nyan was probably not what you could call a normal person, but it did not surprise Hikari that she'd managed to piss her off as well. Nor was she particularly bothered, really. She was tired and hungry and really frustrated. "You couldn't have waited two seconds, could you? We could have worked out where we needed to go! Damn it, Nyan Nyan."

"No! If wait, dead! Dead is _BAD_."

"She has a point," said Reishun, sounding a lot more like herself. Teasing Hikari appeared to make her feel better, which only served to convince Hikari that the universe was laughing at her.

"You just don't want people talking to Houki-sama."

"Look," said Reishun, pointedly, "didn't you say something about Kutou before? The Shoryuu river flows from Kutou to Kounan, didn't you know?"

"No! How the hell am I supposed to know something like that? And how does that help us, Reishun? We still don't know where he could have gone and how to find him. Of course, you don't even believe me, which is of no help at all-"

"I do believe you," said Reishun, eyeing her. "You might be losing your mind of course, but I believe you. Plus, that- the empress did say he'd left to befuddle the prime minister guy, right? How could you have known that if your dream wasn't right."

Hikari frowned, looking displeased, though this was mostly because despite her general annoyance, Hikari felt lighter. There was no plausible reason for it, given that Reishun hadn't come up with a solution so much as simply told her that she believed her. A burden that had mounted her shoulders since she'd first told Reishun and the girl had reacted with immense skepticism seemed to unravel itself. It was quite magical, and very weird.

"Not that it helps," she said, gruffly. "It was very vague - he said he was a dragon and he said I needed to find the other Shinzahos." And for the first time, now that she was away from the palace and the sun was back up in the sky, she found herself wondering why she needed to do any of it. She hadn't evem said she would - he had just assumed as much and she hadn't questioned why she should follow some random kid's instructions probably to her own death? But then again, there was little else to do - or so she told herself, to ignore the sense that she was indeed making a conscious decision at the moment and that it had something to do with the purely irrational manmade concept of 'destiny'. "And he said something about the nine-headed beast and the black dragon and-"

Reishun frowned. "About what?"

Why was it whenever something struck a chord with someone, they had you repeat what you had said? It was like the precedent to the slow-motion repetition of important scenes in any cheesy anime. "The nine-headed beast and black dragon," she repeated, mostly patiently, even as her mind cast back to the brief and vivid flash of the creature around Boushin. He had told her something - he had quite possibly given her a clue. But why the hell couldn't he just have told her clearly? "Do you know anything about those?"

"It sounds familiar," said Reishun, frowning, and looking slightly as though she wanted to take back the thing about believing her. "But I don't know..."  
"Gah," retorted Hikari, frustrated. "Well. Gah. Of course, these instructions are always vague. Find the Shinzahos, find his corporeal dead bits and pieces, and save the universe. That sounds like it'll be easy do!"

"One thing at a time, maybe," said Reishun, sounding amused, much to Hikari's great annoyance.

"How can you be so calm about this and freak out about a bit of dirt..."

"It wasn't a _bit_ of dirt," muttered Reishun. "Anyway, panicking about dirt was helpful - we are now clean, see? Panicking about things like that never helps. You just take it one step at a time and keep going."

"What is it with optimistic people? You sound like a ... bloody hallmark greeting."

"If that is something that annoys you then that's probably a compliment," said Reishun cheerily.

Hikari sighed. And then, although she would not admit it, while thinking about first possible steps only because of the hallmark-greeting-card-like comment, she had a thought. "Map."

"Hm?"

"We should get a map! That's at least one way of working out how to get to Kutou, right? A map!" Then, she paused. "You do have maps in this country, don't you?"

"Of course we have maps-"

"Good, excellent! Are you done?" She paused as Reishun regarded her balefully, still semi-clad. "Right. No. Well, hurry up, won't you? We need to get a map!"

* * *

Having some sort of plan of action made Hikari nearly as happy as being clean made Reishun. As a result, by the time they had made their way back to the small village where they had quite unceremoniously landed, they were both in far better spirits, laughing and talking and poking fun at one another without wanting to kill one another. It was a remarkable improvement in moods, but it also meant that when the pig owner opened the door, not very long after the invaders of his beloved pig pen had left, it was to find them standing outside, looking inexplicably cheerful. A slight smell was still emanating from Hikari, who had not scrubbed quite as much as Reishun - though he wasn't really bound to notice it anyway. It was a myth that a bit of dirt was an effective disguise and these faces were perfectly recognisable even without the filth on them.

"What on earth?" he asked, quite reasonably.

"Hello, respected Mr. Owner of Pigs," said Reishun, very politely. "We apologise so much for scaring your pigs before. But we were wondering if you knew of anyone in the village who had perhaps a map of the realms?"

"And a horse, perhaps," put in Hikari, without a single 'um'. Perhaps it was because the ice had already been broken with this man. A screaming match was one way of doing that, and somehow, Hikari wasn't terribly afraid of him, even if he was a stranger. It probably helped that she was far more strange to him than he was to her.

"Two would be better."

"And some food," said Hikari, whose stomach was rumbling.

"Food would be most excellent."

"Especially if you've magically managed to invent coffee over the last day, because I could really do with a cup of-"

The man cut Hikari off by swinging the door shut in their faces. For a moment, they stood there, staring at the door.

"You had to bring up the coffee," said Reishun, shaking her head. "I think we had him until you went rambling on about coffee. What on earth is coffee anyway?"

"I think it may have had something to do with the fact that someone thoughtlessly tossed us in his pig pen," said Hikari, glaring at the Nyan Nyan orb in Reishun's hands. Nyah Nyan was still not talking to her directly. The honeymoon period of their acquaintance had clearly come to an end. "And that you kept sitting there like some kind of paralysed weirdo-"

"Hey! You're the one who yelled at him!"

"Well, he had it coming!"

"What do you _think_ it looked like? Two weird women plonked in his pig pen, one of whom was yelling at him most unnecessarily-"

"While _you_ did nothing!"

"You have no people skills!"

"_You're_ a sn-"

The door swung open again and the man emerged, this time with a broom. As though he intended to sweep them off his doorstep. Reishun had to admit it was sort of cute, except that he also smelled like the pigs that she'd just washed off her own clothes and was quite dirty. "WHAT ON EARTH!" he demanded, loudly this time. "GET LOST!"

"WHERE CAN WE FIND A MAP AND SOME FOOD?" demanded Hikari, at the same volume, making Reishun cringe.

The man stared at her, vexed, as though not quite sure what to make of this tiny young girl who didn't balk at yelling at him. "I'm going to get my grandmother!" he threatened, finally, and suffered from the unpleasant experience of having two women roll their eyes at him (one in a slightly more snooty, upper-class kind of way).

"Sure," said Hikari, crossing her hands across her chest. "Maybe she will know how to treat hungry young female travellers."

The man stared at her and then at Reishun, who shrugged. Really, she was quite impressed and amused by this more adamant version of Hikari (and she had the strongest suspicion that she had effectively called the man's bluff - a guy whose most persistent threat appeared to be that he would tell his mother couldn't really be that much of a jerk anyway). Snarling, he turned and stomped into the house, leaving the two women staring after him. A minute later, his voice reached them - gruffy and infuriated. "I'm not going to bring it out to you!"

"...it worked," said Hikari, as Reishun smacked her (well, patted, gently, but it felt like a smack) on the back and dragged her along into the house.

As it transpired, there was no real reason to be terrified of the young man's old grandmother, a wrinkled, gnarled lady with a marked absence of teeth. She did have a walking stick she seemed fond of using to poke at her son with and a strong belief that unmarried women travelling alone must be harlots, but this didn't mean that her son needed to be rude, of course. Much to Hikari's great (and silent - for she found that her tongue returned to its former twisted and highly socially awkward state the second she was confronted by the old lady) amusement, the man was scolded for not being more polite and Reishun was scolded for leading an innocent child like Hikari down the path of sordidness. Once everyone had been thoroughly chastised, lunch was served.

It was Hikari's first square meal since landing in the book - the fish did not quite count as a square meal - and she launched herself at it with the same enthusiasm with which she had attacked the fish the previous morning. She was only very dimly aware of what she was eating, or that a substantial part of it was green and leafy and she had once argued that she was not a green-vegetables kind of person (it hadn't worked, but she had put forth quite an impassioned speech). Now she ate possibly a whole bowl of greens all by herself, washing it down with some kind of soup and managing to polish off two delicious buns. Then, she sat back and sighed, rubbing her stomach, only to discover that everyone else was looking at her slightly oddly. "I was hungry," she muttered, less bothered because with that much fortifying food in her systerm, she felt about twenty times better.

"Weird travellers," muttered the man. His name, it had transpired, was Oda.

"You've had other travellers?" asked Reishun, instantly, staring at him with great intent.

"Yes," he said, quite seriously. "Three months ago, we had a traveller, also heading to Kutou - although he didn't plant himself in someone's pig pen."

As Reishun's face fell, Hikari eyed him. "Where can we get a map around here?" she asked, battling with her desire for another bun. On the other hand, if their last brush with a traveller had been three whole months ago then perhaps a map would be too much to ask for. And, she admitted, it wasn't as though looking at a piece of paper would help her find Shu and the objects. It would only help her understand the lay of the land somewhat.

"A map is hard to come by," said the man, dismissively.

"Hard, but not impossible?" asked Hikari, hopefully. "Someone must have wanted to travel these lands and draw a map?"

"From our village?" asked the man incredulously.

"That's true, Hikari," said Reishun, shaking her head. "Most common villagers are very rooted-"

"What do you mean a 'common villager'? People never leave this village!"

The walking stick prodded him hard in the shoulder. "A lot you know," said his grandmother, her eyes gleaming. "Master Chen went travelling a few years ago..."

"Obaasan, that was _eighty _years ago."

"He was a very handsome lad, back in the day," said the old lady, who had a dreamy look in her eyes as she reminisced, much to Reishun and Hikari's amusement. "Beautiful boy, really, with the nicest hair. But you could never tie him down with matrimony - you see, Reishun-chan, it's different for a man who goes travelling."

"Obaasan," said Oda, as Reishun went slightly red, "the man was a raving loony!"

"Yes," she agreed gravely. "But he was very handsome then, and went travelling great distances. Wherever you need to go, he can tell you how to get there."

"It probably won't help that he died, though," Oda pointed out, in a kind tone.

"No," agreed the old woman, "probably not. But do you know what Mrs. Gi said Feng-Mei said that her granddaughter told her? A monk who had been travelling by said something about an old wise sage in the forest." She looked keenly at Hikari and Reishun, who nodded. Maybe this was a lead (even if Hikari had to adjust her sensibilities to allow herself to consider 'an old wise sage in the forest' a lead). "If you just traverse upstream along the Shoryuu, you will surely find him."

"That wandering monk was _me_," supplied Oda, shaking his head. By the reddened stature of his face, though, it became clear that even if he knew his grandmother was very fond of cooking stories, he did know Feng-Mei's granddaughter and had very good reason for telling her tall stories.

"But is there a sage?" asked Reishun.

Oda shrugged carelessly. "It's just a passing rumor. A lot of villages to the north and west have been raided, and a lot of people have been heading for cities or leaving the country, towards Kutou."

"No one would ever have considered moving to Kutou before," muttered his grandmother, with a decisive bias. "Horrible country."

"They're in a mess right now, but even so, there are greater chances of earning a living there. Anyway, there is a stupid rumour about a wise man somehwere upstream. I'm sure he would be able to tell you, but you'd need a map to get to him," he finished, with an obnoxious grin, which only grew wider as Hikari and Reishun's faces fell. "It's probably nonsense to begin with."

Hikari would have felt more inclined to whack him if she hadn't been comfortably full and resisting the urge to pat her very happy stomach. He probably did have a point. People didn't appear to want to leave their villages, and when they did, it seemed to be quite a traumatic experience for them.

"Is there anyone in your village who has gone to Kutou recently?" she asked, after a moment's silence. The next instant, Reishun's foot connected with her ankle in what was probably meant to be a warning tap, and Hikari yelped in pain. She reached down to touch her ankle, but her chin met the table with a somewhat painful _thud_! Growling, she brought her foot up, and found that her knee suffered the same fate.

"This is exactly what happened to Master Chen," said Oda, ominously, and Reishun looked torn between being apologetic and amused.

"Did _he_ ever go to Kutou?" asked Hikari, glaring at Reishun.

"He probably did," said Oda. "But you two don't want to go to Kutou right now, do you? The war has been raging there for the last ten years - it's really not a safe place for young women such as yourself. You should head back home." He looked at them severely, adding, "And get out of mine."

"No, you should think about settling down and marrying my son here," the old lady told Reishun very seriously, much to the man's alarm.

It took them several minutes to disentangle themselves from the kind old woman, who was quite taken with Reishun and intent on fixing her up with Oda. Unlike Feng-Mei's granddaughter, apparently, Reishun had more even teeth and longer hair. When they left, they were in high spirits and very well fed, highly grateful for the generosity and hospitality (even if they hadn't really left the man with a choice). Though not any better off than they had been before, who was to say that they wouldn't find a random old sage in the forest or a map in the next village? It was as simple as following the Shoryuu river upstream!

* * *

Unable to sleep - and slightly frustrated by the fact that Tasuki had fallen asleep the instant his head had touched the pillow - Taka stood alone by the river, its clear waters runinng calmly along its meandering path, almost lazily compared to the more swift waters of the rivers in Kounan. The sun was setting in the distance, and though it wasn't surprising, it was reassuring to find that the colours reflected on the water by the sunlight were the same here as they were in Kounan - or even Japan, really. It was a touch of calm for an otherwise interally turbulent Taka.

Being an adult, he reminded himself, meant that the occasional little white lie was necessary and made life easier. Admittedly, this was a little more than a little lie. Not that they hadn't intended to tell Hikari. Of course they would have told her. But the terror that once she realised the truth of her parentage, and the essence of her own destiny, she would not return, was very real, though he wondered if they had on some level simply felt complacent about the amount of time at their disposal. Hikari was a child, not even as old as Miaka had been when she'd been dragged in. Even if she was considerably more mature, she was still a kid. So how could the book want her now?

Not for the first time, he found himself annoyed with the book, which had so often served to ruin their lives. Even if there was always a greater meaning behind it, Taka had to loathe the greater meaning, which inevitably came with loss - whether it was his family and friends, or Miaka's and his innocence. At the end of every great epic was a whole other kind of loss, though, wherein the flow of life, as against the pull of the story, carried you or the book itself away from you. Taka suspected that it was now his time to stand still as life in the book moved on. A sense of age touched at him, and he grimaced at it, right before a hard hand smacked him in the shoulder, startling him horribly.

"Losing your concentration, I see," Tokaki said, sounding both amused and mildly annoyed.

"Must be the old age," said Taka, resisting the desire to pat himself over his heart.

This earned him a grin, mildly gratifying because after this revelation, he had felt much like mud. Tasuki had contributed to this in no small manner by informing that he was, in fact, somewhat like mud - foul, dusty and worth stepping on. Although his old teacher and Subaru had said nothing at the time, he hadn't got the feeling that they particularly approved. At least he wasn't so much like mud that his old sensei would not talk to him.

"Seems to me," said Tokaki, chugging on his pipe, "we had a talk here a long time ago, when you were busy philosophising your small brain to even smaller pieces."

"Well, you told me to stay away from the love of my life," said Taka, eyeing the old man.

"And you fell into the river," finished Tokaki, a little too cheerfully. Really, Taka thought, he was quite a crabby old man who enjoyed driving people insane (it was payback). "Good old times."

Taka said nothing, shaking his head with a half-hearted grin and a shrug. Good old times, other than the part where Tatara and Chiriko died, and Yui summoned Seiryuu, of course - that was what the old man meant, of course, but though Taka understood well enough the need to cast humour on unpleasant occurences, thinking about the past made him think about the pure betrayal in Tasuki's eyes before the latter had turned away from him and the terrible and unjust deaths that his fellow Seishi had met. Was it more unjust for them to have never spoken of them to their daughter? Taka closed his eyes against the constant ringing of his thoughts.

His sensei's voice kept him from tuning out.

"Let me tell you a story," said Tokaki, in the contemplative manner he had honed over a hundred odd years, "although you may not like it."

"You take pleasure in making people uncomfortable, don't you?" muttered Taka, but tilted his head to the side to indicate that he was listening.

"Life is full of uncomfortable truths," said Tokaki, somewhat severely. "But anyway, this is the truth about the Genbu no Miko, about whom there are many truths, all of which contradict one another and have reasons for being true. The reason why this is true is because the person who told me of this knew the last of the Genbu seishi. Or so she said."

"That's very precise of you."

"You're cottoning on," grinned Tokaki, confusing Taka even more. "The Genbu no Miko had a story very similar to that of the Byakko no Miko, and your wife, at that - in that she came to this world, picked probably not the best looking of all her Seishi (well, Suzuno-chan didn't pick me) to fall in love with and found that it led to a lot of trouble for everyone involved. The Genbu no Miko suffered from a terrible disease, for which there was no medicine in this land, and her lover of course wanted her to use her last wish to save herself - while he himself was in terrible pain and about to die. She never knew of his sacrifice and a few hours after she left, he passed away."

"You're right - this is a terrible story."

A puff of smoke issued from Tokaki's pipe and floated up towards the trees before dissipating. "Suzuno-chan knew of the Genbu no Miko - perhaps they existed in the same time in their world. She said that the last wish was not used to save herself - in fact, the Genbu no Miko met a terrible end of her own."

Taka nodded. "Her father killed her to stop the pain of the beast god devouring her."

"But before he did, her last wish was to send Genbu back to this world and sever the ties between the two universes. Surely each had known that they would die alone and separate from one another, but neither knew of the other's sacrifice. And no one would know of it, or of the true reasons why they died in such a terrible manner," Tokaki finished with an unmistakeable sort of relish.

Taka wondered if he had a specific reason for being pleased about people suffering and being unhappy, but did not ask (because he probably did have a good reason). He fell silent, considering the story and thinking about the grave that they'd all gone to visit so many years ago. "What's the point, sensei?" he asked, finally.

"%&$# happens," said Tokaki, solemnly. "That's just life."

Taka sighed. "Is this the part where you tell me I should I have told Hikari, because that would mean she was better prepared?" he asked, preemptively, and not a little defensively. "Because I know that. I know it was pretty stupid to be afraid and it's all very well to stand around here and think about it retroactively, when I know I should be getting some sleep before we try to raid the place tonight."

Tokaki took a deep whiff of his pipe. "I didn't say any of that," he pointed out, not particularly sympathetic.

"So what's the point?" Taka almost snapped, raising an eyebrow somewhat derisively. It had very little effect on Tokaki, which reminded the younger man of how old his sensei was and how much of an ass he was being. The eyebrow was duly lowered.

"Always a hotshot, never stopping to think for a second. The point? The point is that you were wrong," said Tokaki, decisively. "But you couldn't have done it another way. It isn't easy to believe your children can survive without you, is it? Or to have faith in your parenting skills because you know that no matter what your own parents had done, you would have turned out the way you wanted to? The truth is you can't control anything about the life of your child, not unless you're a loony neurotic - but what kind of parent would you be if you didn't try?"

"Tasuki-"

"Tasuki won't understand - he is a kid. Did you understand your parents before you grew up?"

Taka wanted to pout and say that he wasn't ready to be that MUCH of a parent. Kind of belated, really, and silly, because of course it had occured to him that somewhere along the process of raising Hikari he would age to the point of being one of The Parents. He had just never felt all that old. Then he cast a sidelong glance to Tokaki, who was about a hundred years older and probably only so accepting because he'd had all that time to get over it. Shaking his head, he looked back the river, glowing deep red now in the light of the setting sun. It would be time soon.

* * *

Screaming women had always freaked Keisuke out, perhaps because his earliest childhood expeirences had taught him that when a woman (i.e. his mother) yelled, it meant that the couch in front of the television was perpetually occupied by someone (i.e. his father, who had been kicked out of the bedroom) and the quality of food dwindled from fair to absolute crap. As a fairly sheltered person, possibly the worst thing in his life had been the day his father had left the family, and that too had been marked by a remarkable amount of yelling. As a result, he did as much as he could to avoid irking Yui anymore than she already was.

Keisuke had once told Tetsuya (when the latter had been trying to court Yui, in the typical way that most boys employed well past the age where that kind of thing was acceptable - i.e. by trying to bug her) that annoying Yui was like nudging a sleeping dragon with a hot poker; she took a while to respond, being thick-skinned and probably not as bothered by hot pokers as non-dragons were - because, Keisuke has reasoned, dragons breathed fire and probably didn't mind the heat as much, of course - but when she did respond, it was with the kind of crunch you didn't want to be at the end of. This hadn't made sense to Tetsuya until the first belated outburst, in which he had become the unwitting vicitim of a cascade of various kinds of accumulated frustration, ranging from the horror of her experiences in the book to the fact that she had not managed to acquire her brand of cornflakes at the supermarket because the company had, for some stupid reason, gone bankrupt.

It really wasn't that she was spoilt, even though she basically sounded like it quite often. Keisuke knew what spoilt looked like, being Miaka's older brother. It was just that Yui was the kind of person who could not express herself immediately because she believed she had to be the calm, collected one who handled everything on her own (the kind that you would never expect to be friends with a person like Miaka who expressed everything immediately and without thinking about it) - and a really, really bad communicator. You had to be telepathic to understand her entirely, really, which almost no one in the house really was - Nakago excluded (because you really didn't want to involve Nakago in your calculations). Keisuke certainly wasn't, but he felt he could relate somewhat. It was indeed his neice and little sister and brother-in-law that had leapfrogged into the book, but if anyone else had a filial relationship with his family, it was Yui.

It was thus with great thought and consideration that Keisuke put the tea in a flask, so it wouldn't cool in case the hysterical woman hadn't emerged from the bathroom (and she hadn't, making him the hero of the hour, he thought), and brought it in. Yes, he felt a bit like the house-maid, but that was a relatively minor quibble. Yui seemed to appreciate this gesture and even thanked him at a normal volume, so that when Keisuke walked out of the room, leaving a remarkably calm Hanako with an equally (but deceptively) calm Yui, he felt a lot more fortified. See? He was a nice guy and no one was angry with him. No one had actually meant to yell at him and if they had, it had been resolved with tea. Later, he would wonder if this sudden need to please the screaming lady was some kind of weird return to the primal state for him, but for now, for one brief and fleeting moment, he felt about as secure as he could.

Which was why when he emerged in the living room, right before Tetsuya grabbed him by the collar and proceeded to shake him, he had upon his face a somewhat smug grin. It was a moment of satisfaction in what had been a really bad day, right before, as the laws of the universe demanded, the already really bad situation became worse.

"Why," asked Keisuke, relatively calmly, "are you shaking me, Tetsuya?"

"The book is black!" sais Tetsuya.

"Again!"

"AGAIN?"

"Indeed," interrupted Nakago, sounding mildly bored.

This seemed to remind Tetsuya that he had given up on trying to find the sort of calm that guided him through a largely unproductive life without freaking out about silly things (or even big things, really). Keisuke could understand this: Nakago was still on his couch, looking at the book on the table with his impassive expression in place, his wife was mad at him for no clear reason and there appeared to be someone from a different world locked in his bathroom. And the book, as it happened, the source of all their troubles, had turned in fact black. "They had reached the river and everything in the book turned completely black, Keisuke! This is... this is bad, isn't it?"

"Who had reached the river? Did it say anything about Miaka?"

"_Miaka's_ in there?"

"It has said nothing about the Suzaku no Miko, but I suspect this is because she is at the palace at Eiyou," said the spirit on the couch, looking at Keisuke. It felt almost like a betrayal to... to, well, everything good and reasonable, to look at Nakago and be glad that someone was being somewhat calm at this conjuncture. While they had all been freaking out, Nakago had remained with the book - probably because he was too damn comfortable on the couch to move. It should not have been reassuring, and it wasn't, really. It made him feel like all the tea they'd been drinking was acting up in his stomach because even the hint of camraderie with the Kutou general was loathsome and just plain wrong. "The Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho seemed to struggle through Hikari's walk through the Palace with the Yellow Dragon-"

"The _what_?"

"It is ever so typical of you people to remain complacent at a troubling time."

The discomfort in Keisuke's stomach lightened somewhat at the more familiar sense of irritation. "What the hell do you mean, damn it? If you're not going to be helpful then shut up!"

"I mean precisely what I say. The presence of the Yellow Dragon seemed to make the book's struggle to remain communicative as a link between our worlds easier. But the moment he left, the book did fall into darkness once more. And when they appeared - somewhere around when you were making tea - the Shinzaho of Suzaku and her incompetent guardian Seishi were discussing foolish, flippant matters by the river."

And Keisuke was right back to wanting Nakago to bugger off.

"And they got some food, and then left to travel along the river towards Kutou, but the book is now black - what does that mean!"

Keisuke stared at Tetsuya, swallowing as he processed this information. What did it mean? Some of the strange things happening in the book were beginning to make sense, but there was no comfort in this knowledge. He clenched and unclenched his fists to fight down the truly terrible horror that there was nothing they could really do to help. Nothing but make tea by the metric tonne and drink it all while pretending this would make it better. For the first time, Keisuke could feel defeated, because even if his best friend was being unhelpful for the moment, he was right there, and it was okay to be as afraid as he wanted to be. "It means," he said, with a stony finality, "that the force that is powerful enough to destroy the book itself is now upon Hikari."

Tetsuya stared at him. And then, as one, all three pairs of eyes turned to the book, and its meaningless, unyielding void.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I love how I start out thinking 'THIS is the chapter in which stuff shall happen', and then get caught up in dialogue and random supporting characters and tea and pigs (in this case). It is nonetheless not an entirely useless chapter (though I suppose if I ever get around to editting this, I'm going to slash it all down to about half it's size). So I do apologise for the rambling, and assure you that soon, stuff will indeed happen. Thanks especially to _Flashyfirebird _for the awesome reviews (they really do keep me going :D), my bunny friend, and to everyone who is reading this!

_Random Notes:_

_Of Pigs in Ancient Chinese History:_ Pigs were one of the first animals to be domesticated and there is evidence for their domestication in China from at least 6000 BCE, if not earlier (some sites say 10000 BP/8000 BCE). I'll be honest and say I have no idea if there WERE pig pens in ancient China - but I'm obviously assuming there were. This isn't a huge plot point, but if anyone knows of a site/book that indicates exactly HOW families kept them, I'll be very grateful. The assumption abut the filth is based on this:_ 'Pigs probably got the reputation as dirty animals because they like to wallow in mud. There's a reason. Pigs do not have functional sweat glands, so they can't perspire to cool themselves. They roll around in the mud to cool their skin.' _(taken from hubpages(dot)com(slash)hub(slash)Pig-Facts) I know that pigs were auspicious in China (given that people were sometimes buried with pigs and such) and I also think it's a bit of a leap for me to think dirt was as MUCH of an issue. But this assumption is based ... very loosely on moral values imposed on women according to vancouverchinesegarden(dot)com(slash)info(slash)documents(slash)Confucius_ and on the whole, again, does not matter on a grand scale in terms of plot. But again, if anyone knows anything, please let me know. As far as this story and Reishun's character go, I think it makes sense - also she's under other kinds of stress from the Houki interaction and such. *nodnod*

_The Genbu Myth: _Yes, there are certain implicit discrepancies. I've not deviated from canon yet - though I think because I'm only using myths and stories passed down over generations (for the time being) any canonical discrepancies can be explained through how the story was retold to begin with. If that makes any sense. But I strongly suspect I will deviate from canon, so let's just say I'm mostly keeping into account as much of the Genbu Kaiden as is out now (Chapter 32 was out last month! Eeee! Finally, right?). Since the next chapter is out in October, I may even be done by this (... famous last words?), but who knows. Oh, and I ALSO strongly suspect Tokaki was not TOTALLY correct about the story so... ...er, go with the flow? *grins sheepishly*

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	17. 16 The Last Bend

**Chapter Sixteen **

**The Last Bend**

* * *

_"What's broken can always be fixed... what's fixed will always be broken."_

~ Jens Lekman ~

* * *

He dreamed of a beautiful girl with soft long tresses and a smile that remained shy until you coaxed it into blooming. It was a wholly unremarkable dream, except for the fact that he had not dreamt of her in almost twenty years now, since the day he lost her to his own anger. The raging river had only swept away the shattered fragments of that which had once been, but which he had damaged. He had spent three years wondering if he he could have fixed what he had broken with a little patience and understanding, but now he knew it didn't matter because you could not undo what you had done and that trust was not like a bowl that could just be glued back together.

They had never lost love, really; you did not stop loving someone. In fact, if anything, he had loved her too much and too strongly, with all the rage and possessive jealousy that marked the darker aspects of Suzaku. It was not love that he had lost, because it was love that remained with him, tormenting him, as in his dream she sat with him and stroked his hair, and whispered his name through the night.

When he awoke, he could hear her calling him still, her whispers echoing in the rustling of the wind through the trees.

"Houjun," they whispered, as the dark clouds gathered once more. "Houjun..."

* * *

It was a very straightforward plan: invade gigantic intimidating fortress of doom, wander about dungeons and check each cell, rescue wandering monk, teleport out, don't get dead. At least, Taka reflected as he considered the prospect of what they were about to attempt, the total and utter lack of subtlety meant that some people (i.e. Tasuki) would not attempt to demonstrate their abilities to Proceed With Caution, which were gloriously nil. He did not say this, of course. In fact, since Tasuki continued to seem quite annoyed, he said nothing at all for the most of it.

As night fell and the desert-lands of Sairou grew frigid, they proceeded with uncharacteristic silence and solemnity, leaving a behind an anxious sort of Subaru (who did nonetheless tell Tokaki to keep his hands to himself) and a trail of smoke from the old man's pipe. Really, he needed to lay off the tobaco, Taka thought. They walked along the river, away from the city.

At the last bend, Tokaki paused to turn around and look at the doujo. It was too dark to see now, but Taka imagined that Subaru still stood there, watching. Judging by the long moment in which Tokaki stood there, considering the silhouette of his home, he could imagine her as well. It had taken a little convincing on Tokaki's part to ensure that she did not come with them. He'd mentioned 'the letters' and 'that idiot' and 'holding the fort down'. Not to mention that of the four of them, the only one with any healing capabilities (though she mostly just tricked time into forgetting ailments and injuries) was her. She had agreed, though the anxiety in her wise, gentle eyes made it clear that until they came back, she would be waiting (at the cave they had specified, deeming it too foolish to assume that the doujo would be safe if they were not) and thinking and worrying, and the later they were, the more trouble they would be in.

Eventually, Tokaki turned, patting his tummy gently and looking at the two younger men. Younger than him, of course - there were few who weren't - but full-grown men, of whom one looked sulky and the other looked as though he'd stolen his brother's sweets. He shook his head. "If I die because the two of you are being stupid," he said, conversationally, "I'm going to be very annoyed. I have a bad feeling about this, so don't screw up."

He stalked off, leaving Taka and Tasuki to look at his retreating back and then eye each other with some annoyance.

"%*#*) stupid. Who's bein' %*() stupid? Except you, of course," said Tasuki, baring his fangs at Taka in a half-grin, half-snarl that took Taka aback a little not because of its ferociousness but because of the sudden impression of Angry Bear. Quite out of the blue, really. "%&%*#(# moron."

Taka sighed. Really, this wasn't the time to be thinking about how angry his friend was with. Plus, what was he, his wife? He did not need to feel as stupid as he did, as helpless and, really, juvenile - for he was an adult and that had been a conscious decision he had taken. Tokaki was right, too - he would not have done it any other way, for what else could he have done? Yet, if his parents had hidden the truth of his own destiny from him... Taka sighed and reminded himself to act like a grown-up. With one last look at the doujo, he turned to follow Tokaki and Tasuki to the ruins of Byakko's old temple.

Once, Subaru had told them, the land of Sairou had believed in the legend of Byakko with such conviction that they had built their cities and palaces in accordance with this faith. The fortress that marked the residence of the king now was not what the palace had looked like back then. Although the kings had always had had checkposts and watch towers along the higher points of the hills around them, to keep a look out over the stretches of desert land, they had never felt the need to create an unfriendly fortress in the middle of the valley, sticking out like a bad poem about the internal paranoia of the dynasty and their instinctive fear, rather than love, of the common people. The dynasty had made certain changes in the trading patterns that had brought great prosperity to some classes, but feared the tribes who were a basic part of Sairou's countryside.

And they did not respect the legacy of the Byakko shichi seishi and priestess. But the positive side of being forgotten, as Tokaki said, was that they did not know the secrets of the palace that had helped the Byakko warriors before. On a very basic level, this meant that, as they had not bothered to repair Byakko's old temple, they did not know of the hidden passage that linked it with the palace dungeons.

As Taka caught up with Tasuki and Tokaki at the former entrance of the shrine, he saw for the first time what Miboshi's monsters the summoning of Seiryuu had done to the once safe haven. The gate itself had survived, but barely, the sculpted stone cracked down the middle of a scene where the white tiger prowled in the forest. There were marks on the gateway that Taka had not noticed before, and which he barely noticed now, only glancing at the engravings enough to recognise the characters distantly but illegibly.

The boundary of the shrine, broken at places, enclosed a stretch of ruins. Large building stones had collapsed into the space that had once been the multi-storeyed building and the passages that had frustrated them all by how they basically seemed to lead nowhere. All that stood erect now was the skeleton of the building. It would have been a lie to say that it wasn't highly depressing. It was like looking at a shipwreck. You wanted to look away out of respect, but it was hard to do so.

"Damn," muttered Tasuki, and frowned, as though hoping to scare the depression into submission. "So where's this passage, then?"

"The graves," said Tokaki, walking down the stairs into what would have once been the courtyard of the shrine. "Around back."

They walked through the rubble, stepping over large chunks of stone and around the fragments of the old walls. The shrine had been a large space, a refuge to monks until they had been corrupted by Miboshi's magic. Taka snuck a look at his friend as they walked now. Of them all, Tasuki had probably been the most affected by those they had lost - especially Chiriko's - and Taka's memories of this place came not from Chiriko's memory stone but from Tasuki's. If he associated this place with a dulled and foul sort of helplessness, then at least half of that was because of how Tasuki had felt. He longed to speak of this to the bandit, but this was not the time (and also, Tasuki looked like he wanted to belt someone).

"Here we are!" announced Tokaki. As Taka blinked out of his reverie, he found, to his surprise, that there were eight graves here. One had no characters on the gravestone, but each of the others had clearly recognisable signs. Taka had to drag his gaze away from the characters denoting the constellations of _Kui _and _Mao _- Tokaki and Subaru - to look at his sensei, who seemed mostly unaffected.

"But-"

"Yes, yes," he said, heading for the one marked '_Wei_'. He knelt by the grave that contained, allegedly, the remains of Kokie, and fumbled about the headstone. "We're not dead yet. It's a sign of great camaraderie that we all wanted to be buried here. Also a lie - there wasn't much of Kokie left to bury him by the end of it at all, though there was quite a bit of him befo- ah," he announced, ignoring Tasuki and Taka's identical expressions of alarm, as he pressed down on something and they all heard a sound, as though something had given way. It was with ease that Tokaki now pressed on the northern most side of the grave to have it open up as a trap might. Then, to Taka and Tasuki's greater disturbance, he dropped in.

"Come on!" he called up.

Taka looked at Tasuki, who glared at him as though to remind him that _he _was mud and therefore if anyone was going to pop into a tremendously creepy looking grave of someone who had been denied his corporeal remains first, it was _him_. Taka sighed. The Byakko warriors were a bunch of loonies, he concluded, decisively. Then, he grit his teeth with grave misgivings (ha ha) and jumped in.

* * *

As the rain started to fall in the early morning light and a new day dawned, the exhaustion set into his bones as age might have. Something was terribly wrong, but whatever it was continued to elude him. He no longer had the strength to wonder what was wrong - all he needed to do was to get to Mt. Taikyoku, and he would keep trying.

The clouds obscured the the light from the sun. He did not know how long it had been. But for many, many days now, he had the paths on the mountains around Mt. Taikyoku, strugging to get to Taiitsukun.

Why had she not warned him? Was he not a good student or did she not have faith in him to be able to assist her in her time of need?

Sometimes he wondered if perhaps she had determined that she did not need him at all, and the darker aspects of his thoughts overwhelmed him so much that he lost the strength to keep walking. He would keep walking, though, as he always did. He had first started to walk to get away from himself; then, to find himself, and for Kouran and Hikou, and for his friends who had reminded him how much he needed to give and to love.

And when, on these darkest of days, he found that he hadn't the strength to push away thoughts of the mighty, angry Shoryuu river and could not bring himself to walk for the people that had left him, he walked for for the young girl who symbolised the hopes of the universe, who he believed unquestioningly would not give up.

* * *

He landed in a puddle of what was hopefully only muddy slush and not that which had given the cavern the general aromatic disposition of an ancient Chinese batcave. Before he could so much as wrinkle his nose and glare, Tokaki grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and yanked him out of the way with surprising strength as Tasuki landed with even less grace in the same slushy spot.

"Couple of idiots," muttered Tokaki, irritably.

There was no light in the cave itself - only the sliver of the red glow of the sunset peering in through Kokie's fake grave. Taka managed to observe the natural stone walls of the underground cave, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. As Tasuki picked himself up and muttered obscenities, Taka walked to one of these walls, running his hand along it against the engraved characters, similar to the unknown script that had existed on the gateway. It was familiar, but it would be a long time before he remembered what it was. "What do they say?" he asked

Tokaki did not look at him, walking to a large stone to fumble around that instead. "Excerpts," he said, shortly. "Small passages from the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho - and god knows what else. Damn women," he concluded, rather incomprehensibly, before uttering another "ah!" of satisfaction as the grave slid shut and plunged the cave into total darkness. All anyone could see was a red glow from Tokaki's pipe, but with the small opening closed, somehow, sounds of steadily dripping water became more audible - as though it had been escaping before.

"How th- *#$W$*$## )$*!"

Taka cringed as the cave echoed with shocked expletives in Tasuki's voice. There was something severely weird about the acoustics here, he concluded, as Tokaki snorted, and they were all surrounded with what sounded like a large pig farm.

"Follow me," said Tokaki, in a very low, but very amused, tone which then hummed around the cave. Taka and Tasuki followed the tiny red glowing point of Tokaki's pipe, bumping into each other and making the entire cave growl in frustration.

It was a long while before anyone spoke. They only followed the red point, which bobbed slightly as Tokaki walked. Taka had the sense that they were in a passage, because twice, he bumped his shoulder into a sharply jutting out bit of rock, but mostly he could not see very much. It was cool and a little stuffy underground, and as they walked, the steady _drip-drip-drip_ of the water grew louder. But Taka lost track of when they turned and where they were going. In fact, his sense of direction felt entirely befuddled and this was alarming. At least they weren't planning to return in this manner. If they had to, though, he would have no idea how to get out or where he was, even. It was a little frustrating to be walking blind.

Then, as they turned left, the dripping sound turned abruptly into the unmistakeable sounds of a rushing river.

"Weird acoustics," commented Taka, and found that he couldn't hear himself speak.

"PRETTY DAMN COOL, EH?" Tokaki's arm came out of nowhere and smacked him ungently in the back.

"OW!"

"MAN THE *%#*# UP!"

Glowering would be ineffective."WHERE DO WE GO NOW!"

"INTO THE NOISE!"

"OH GOOD!" yelled Taka, fighting the urge to smack his head. It wasn't that he was growing old, really - he was spry and just as up for a loopy adventure as he had ever been. But he was frustrated, restless and the anxiety gnawing at him was driving him as crazy as the noise around him. He couldn't quite make out whether the anxiety came from having his daughter missing, or his friend being really angry with him, or the fact that somewhere in the pit of his stomach, he felt very, very uneasy. Secret passages and all that jazz were great, really, but the element of surprise did not change the fact that they were essentially walking into a fortress without the clearest idea of what they were up against. Even Tokaki and Subaru, for all their preparation, had to admit that they hadn't the slightest idea what was going on.

They did walk into the noise. Initially, they seemed to walk over the noise, which Taka discerned was a bridge over the underground rapids. Then, they walked towards the noise, towards where it sounded as though the water cascaded to smash over the rocks. It wasn't a very big river, Taka was sure, though its noise echoed in the caves and made it louder. They walked through the noise, so that at some point instead of walking towards it, they were walking away from it.

Once they could talk without yelling, Tokaki said, "We found this over a hundred years ago, but both the shrine and the palace have been in the same spot for a long time. Back when the legend was a hope of the future and not a quaint story from the past, they'd believed it in enough to make sure that the god and the ruling family were linked."

Taka looked around - his eyes evidently adjusting to the darkness better now - at the craggy cave tunnel. There was nothing remarkable about it, once more, other than the markings on the walls - much fewer than they had been in the spot where they'd landed, and few and far in between. They were more geometrical than any characters Taka had ever seen before.

"We decided to build our own graves over the entrance, to guard it. No one is buried there, and we won't be either," he added.

"Is this the part where you tell us how you want to be buried?" said Taka, appalled.

"I won't be buried at all," said Tokaki, pleasantly. "I will be cremated and the ashes scattered in the river. It was the same with Tatara. Unless, you know, I have a messy ending or somethi-"

"Holy %*^*#)*%() %*%*#(, %$()# stop!" demanded Tasuki, with only the slightest hint of paranoia in his gruff voice. He had good reason to not want to talk about death and cremation, especially here. "Crazy old man."

Tokaki snorted, greatly amused, but fell silence at Taka rolled his eyes towards the roof of the cave and then stopped.

It wasn't that his eyes were adjusting to the darkness in the cave. Glowing just strongly enough to make the tunnel visible, overhead, were patches of light, faintly fluorescent green. As Taka stared, open-mouthed, he realised that the glow grew stronger every few seconds, as though the light itself was breathing. "What.."

"Tatara's old spell," said Tokaki's voice, and though Taka was surprised, he perceived the change in the tone of Tokaki's voice towards the warmer, as the old man spoke of the Byakko seishi, who had died while trying to protect them from Miboshi's evil spells.

"You mean-"

"Plants don't _glow_!" said Tasuki, sounding impressed in an alarmed kind of way.

"These ones do," said Tokaki, with every reason to be stubborn (they were, after all, glowing). Taka thought of what he'd once distantly heard of, about bioluminiscent life and glowworms, and found it less hard to believe that plants could glow, though he wondered if the magic of it was that these plants had survived for over a hundred years now. On the other hand, they could have sustained themselves well enough here, couldn't they? He did not ask. Perhaps it was because it was nicer, sometimes, not to know, and standing there in the gentle guiding light that the Byakko seishi had left behind countered some of the helplessness that had plagued him for a while now.

They carried on, a little less restless, though Tasuki continued to mutter under his breath about %*$*)* insane Byakko seishi. The passage was long and it took them a while to breach it - this made sense, for the fortress was on the other side of the city and there was a lot of distance to cover. The passage took a large number of meandering turns as well, and sometimes Taka felt as though they were heading in exactly the wrong direction.

And the uncharacteristic hush that fell between Tasuki and him made the walk longer yet - even if Tokaki kept interrupting with random and usually inappropriate comments. Taka knew Tasuki well enough to imagine what he was thinking of. He was thinking of remebrance, of the subtle signs that the Byakko seishi had left behind - and of how the only signs the Suzaku seishi had ever had to prove they existed, the ones that would last, were the people who were meant to remember them after they had gone.

* * *

The fever reached for him and enveloped him when he slept. Inconceivably, his body seemed to be decaying from within, and though he knew he slept for many hours, he seemed to awaken unrested and even more exhausted, as he had before when trapped in Tomo's illusions, so many years ago in Sairou. But when he tried to extend his senses around him, he could sense no barrier so much as he could an all pervading darkness. He was certain this had to do with the universe's ailment - for indeed what else could it be?

Days had passed, though he had no way of knowing how many or how long it had been. For all his sense of distance, it could have been only a few minutes, but time in itself had ceased to have meaning. Chichiri kept pace by putting one foot before the other and continuing to walk. His senses were terribly confused, contorted by his weakness and depleted life. He was not dying - though perhaps he should have been. Instead, he walked on like an abomination who ought to have ceased or given up or managed to find a way out by now. Around him was nothing byt vast open space and the possibility of traversing on any path he had ever glimpsed upon, and he was still trapped - as he had been in a spiral of a despair after Kouran and Hikou had died.

The pouring rain nearly blinded him. He walked now unsteadily in no clear direction, guided by nothing but instinct Sometimes he was unable to shake off the feeling that he was not alone, though in the terrible spaces he had walked through, there was nothing. The darkness around him grew thicker and more powerful, and he had to fight off the belief that there was, really, no reason to keep fighting. That his time was through, his duties done... so why should he keep walking, and keep moving? Exhausted, he stopped and laid down, to battle once more with the exhaustion that he could not fight off.

His fevered dreams became even more redundant, but when he listened to speak his name and felt the familiar pressure on his forehead, he felt as though he could rest. It was a bit like what he imagined what coming home could be like - even though he had renounced the idea of home to his wandering a very long time ago. How could he have a home when everything and everyone he knew had been destroyed? He did not know what had been built on the remains of his village.

But it was this towards which his fevered dreams turned as her fingers ran through his terrible feeling in his gut twisted into a familiar shape, until he finally recognised it as homesickness - a yearning for a place of belonging.

He awoke brielfy to find that his body burning itself out and soaking up the last of its own moisture. A storm had raged all around him now, twisting the darkness into terrible shapes. He slipped into his dreams once more, to the sound of the wind raced through the trees, his name echoing through the mountains.

_"Houjun... Houjun..."_

* * *

The dungeons were silent, though they were careful not to stir the silence as they pulled themselves up a trap door similar to the entrance to Byakko's ancient tunnel. Tokaki sealed it once they had, just as Tasuki broke down the bars to the cell where they'd landed up, causing Taka to hiss for him to be quiet. They stood there, looking around in paranoid anticipation of the soldiers they had been sure would attack them the moment they made a sound. But no one came.

With nothing to do but to move on, they did, taking the passageways and moving swiftly through the cells, looking for Chichiri. But it was, as it turned out, an abandoned and unused part of the dungeon. They weren't attacked or even acknowledged, and by the time they'd crossed the fiftieth empty cell, Taka began to feel mildly ridiculous. In a way, this was probably fortunate - what the hell would you say to someone in a cell that you weren't going to rescue, 'sorry, wrong inmate'?

Were they seriously going to go from room to room in the enormous fortress and look for their friend? Not that he could really think of better way to do it - Tokaki had aptly pointed out that suppressing their chi, as it were, was probably a safer bet than trying to look for Chichiri through seeking _his _chi. To begin with, none of them were particularly adept at this form of seeking, and also, that rendered them more vulnerable. But even then, flitting from cell to cell like this made you feel sort of redundant.

"Always impatient," muttered Tokaki, whacking him in the back of the head.

As Tasuki grinned, apparently very pleased by any form of violence towards Taka, the latter rolled his eyes heavenwards. The restlessness grew and he found it difficult to believe that breaking into a fortress could be as easy as simply using an old, unused passage. It was not as though he did not believe in the power of the Taiitsukun's universe to assist them. But something was amiss. In the pit of his stomach was a sense of unease that even being smacked on the head in the way of a recalcitrant toddler could not allay.

They had encountered... well, nothing. No guards, no soldiers, of course - but nor had they come across anything remotely helpful. The dungeons were silent and although Taka did not want to personify a dark passage, because it was frankly weird, he had the sense that this silence was mocking them, unyielding and amused by their fruitless efforts.

Tokaki smacked him again. "Always broody," he muttered.

"No," said Taka, and in some ways, the silence was so thick that his own voice seemed more muted, even to himself. He _knew_. He just knew, but he didn't know what the hell he knew. It was frustrating in the most commonplace of ways, and _that _was frustrating as well.

Tokaki gave him a look, as though to tell him to stop flipping his beans. The attack was coming, and they knew it. The dungeons seemed quite straightforward, but there was a maze-like quality to them, which revealed itself only once they were deep eough to realise that they were getting more and more trapped. And as the minutes turned longer, no one said anything.

Finally, Taka growled. "This is annoying," he observed, mostly only to break the silence.

"%**$( genius," said Tasuki, even more restlessly than him. If he had been irritable in the vast open spaces of Sairou, he was more than a little claustrophobic here. Again, Taka couldn't blame him - it probably brought back memories of his sisters squashing him flat. But even Tasuki said little more, though Taka could feel him itching to explode, angry with him, angry with the fortress for being so incredibly annoying and with everything in general.

It seemed as though it had been _hours_. They walked down the never-ending passage, now not even bothering to look at the prison cells. At some point of time, the corridor had become linear, without any turns. Somehow, they were now walking down a near linear path, with stone walls on either side and a dead end up ahead. When they reached the dead end, they found it was a prison cell, separated from them by metal bars.

Lying on the floor of the cell was something like a jigsaw puzzle, a fragmented, broken version of a very familiar and happy mask.

"Chichiri's mask," said Tasuki, unnecessarily, but the weariness and anxiety in his voice kept Taka from calling him a %*%*() genius in turn. "What the _hell_."

There was no easy answer to the non-question. What the hell indeed. Taka gritted his teeth. Was _that _the point? To wear them out by making them anticipate the attack so that the actual assault could overwhelm them? One would have to admit that as a strategy, making one's fears bigger than they needed to be wasn't altogether bad. Taka attempted to battle down his frustration, not with any notable degree of successs.

"Do you know," said Tokaki, in his characteristic morbid tone, "I do believe we're trapped."

Taka could only agree. He didn't know when it had happened, the shift so subtle that he hadn't noticed that moment of transition. But his senses felt muted, blotted out by something foul and vulgar. In a sick way, it felt sort of like a violation, as though someone was genuinely messing with parts of him that one really wasn't supposed to mess with. Hell, even Nakago hadn't been so... so _penetrative_. He shuddered, almost as though trying to shake it off, and then turned to look at Tokaki. They were of course trapped - but coming from his sensei, those words carried greater meaning.

Tokaki looked at him, and drew a last long breath through his pipe. The exhaled smoke looked hazily blue in the dim light. "Something's coming," he said, almost casually.

* * *

For the first time, through the dark mist that had enveloped his world, he sensed a familiar touch. It was with some effort that he lifted his head, and though all he saw was the darkness swirling around him, ceaseless and unyielding, like overspilled black ink, through it he felt the real warmth of a friendly presence. He focused on the source and as he looked on, a slim shape emerged from the mists, moving towards him with a lightness of step so familiar and yet so far away from him that it was nearly painful to watch.

This was a dream, he was sure of it; but then, why was he dreaming of her now, like this, when all he had dreamed of in the last few days was his former lover's hands carressing his hair and guiding him towards something like calm. But here she was, the only one other than Kouran that he had ever sworn to protect, in the horrible brown of the school uniform that he now believed was some kind of norm in her universe (after all, her daughter had worn the same brown) and with the pink ribbons in her hair that he had always thought just added to the insanity of her general presence.

She flopped down next to him a characteristic gracelessness that made him doubt, again, if he was dreaming or if he was awake. So he asked her, and she seemed to find this hilarious.

"You've not changed," he said, as she gathered her composure, her cheeks reddened with laughter.

"I've changed a bit," she countered, shaking her head, "but this is just me as you remember me - I've lost the ribbons, though. Would appreciate it if you remembered that the next time. What have you gotten yourself into, Chichiri?"

He looked at her and then shook his head. In a way, he was a bit relieved that this wasn't real. It was not a matter of pride, but he really did not want his fellow Seishi and his priestess, of all people, to catch him in what seemed to a private hell, of sorts. But because they sat together in a companiable sort of silence, in which no romantic drama of any kind exploded around her, he knew that this was a dream. But then, if this wasn't real, then what was? It was a small, unreal reprieve from the otherwise consistently dark and dismal days that he had experienced lately - a probably brief but vivid and tangible kind of clarity.

That, at least, had not changed about his priestess; she was scattered but being around her gave you a sense of trajectory, if nothing else, possibly because she usually had none of her own and you felt more concrete merely by opposition. But it was more than that, he knew. Miaka _was _the center. He stood for Suzaku as the protector of his priestess, and so, for him and for all her seishi, she would always ben the center.

So much so that, before the flood, Chichiri had considered hating her - and if he had not been so consumed by loathing himself after, he would have truly hated her. She was the reason he had lived and not Hikou. She was why all he had lost was his eye, when everyone he had known had been swept away. If there was anyone he could blame, it was probably her.

But instead, he lived to protect her, and her daughter now, and he loved her in a way that was possibly even more basic to him than loving his family. Except, with this kind of love, there was clarity and an instinctive ability to reason. And as minutes turned into hours, he found that the terrible weight in his heart grew somewhat lighter. Finally, she laid a hand on the back of his and met his eyes.

"I know you're tired," she said, "my old friend."

Because he knew he could say this to someone in a dream, he said, "I don't know what to do. I can't find Taiitsukun."

"Maybe you're not supposed to find her," she suggested, gently.

"But what should I do?" he asked, lacking the energy to be alarmed by his own helplessness. "I have never wandered so far from home before."

"But where would a wandering monk belong?" she asked, slightly cheekily. Oddly, as the pieces of the puzzle began to settle into their rightful places, Chichiri found himself growing even more tired. Miaka grinned and squeezed his hand, like a little sister may have to attract her brother's attention. He could almost sense her impatience, and it was, while sort of annoying because he wanted to sleep, still endearing. "Do you remember what you told me by the lake in Eiyou?" she asked, and somehow, she conjured the image up for him, down to the sound of the water splashing gently against the lake. "You said that Yui loved me - 'even more than you think she does' and that that was why I would be able to save her. Do you remember?"

He did remember, even the smell of the incense from the failed attempt to summon Suzaku and Nuriko's obnoxious interruption. He remembered also the empathy he'd felt for Yui, the girl who had caused so much destruction only because she had failed, like him, to understand the nature of her own feelings. He looked at her and nodded. Like any dream, either she had answered all his questions or made matters more complicated, but either way, he was glad of her company, for as long as it lasted. It wasn't to be very long, for in the next instant, her smile vanished.

"Something's coming now," she said, looking at him anxiously. "Will you listen to me?"

Chichiri turned too, and to his intense surprise, it was three men, very recognisable, walking towards him through the mist. "Wh-" He turned to share his shock with Miaka, but she was gone. And when he turned around again, so were they, and he was back on the old path that he knew would lead towards Mt. Taikyoku without ever getting there.

For the first time, the trees whispered a different litany. _Will you listen to me?_ But of course, she hadn't said anything, had she?

* * *

Taka's whole impression of the thing was that of the crudest, sleaziest form of attack ever conceived. It was so base that he almost didn't want to dignify it with a response, but of course this wasn't really a battle of wits. Animals, he thought, hunted like that, by cornering their prey and then destroying them purely on the basis of strength by numbers and the absense of an escape route.

It was uncouth and predictable, even though they'd walked right into the trap wih such fluidity that by the time it even occured to them that it was a trap at all, they were already in so deep that it was improbable that they could get out. They came almost in waves, commonplace soldiers, trained in so known a manner that they died swifty by their hands, and by tessen, whole rows of them obliterated by one wave of Tasuki's tessen (which did catch Taka a tad around the ear and he was pretty sure that was not unintentional, though he was too busy having to deal with the soldiers to be able to really comment appropriately on the matter). But there was only a moment of respite from the assault.

"Oh for %%*#)#'s sake!" cried Tasuki, frustrated, as more of them came, in waves of assault that didn't make SENSE.

Taka could not understand. The strategy of it - to waste so many soldiers on three men, even if those three men were seishi - seemed futile, especially since they were trapped. He did not cast signature chi-blasts, so to speak, not initially, and even Tasuki, who had fewer qualms about singing people who did not necessarily deserve it did not use his tessen. It had no effect to begin with, and they kept on coming.

It was only when, out of rage, he did cast a wall of energy outwards, that he realised what was wrong and why they were trapped, the wall of muted nothing meeting his own blast of frustration. They were not trapped in a maze - but in a cocoon of sorts, and though Taka was furious and his own powers felt as though they ought to be heightened, he could not summon the kind of energy that he believed could break through the coccon - the kind of energy he _knew _he had, though he had suspected for a while that he was just getting old. The soldiers, he realised, were not real, nor the passage they had walked for so long through, endless and unforgiving.

What was real was the exhaustion, the knowledge that they were still trapped, and the fact that each blow they metted out was followed by known sounds of battle, a sick crunch as a bone snapped, a heightened scream cut too short... it felt very real, even though Taka knew, without knowing how he did, that the bastard was just playing with them.

Finally, Tokaki grabbed his arm. "I can do it, if you help!"

Taka knew what he meant. They had to get out, before the illusion became too real for them to remember their way back. But before they could do anything, something exploded. Something like white noise and pain, only that it was dark and terrible.

The soldiers vanished, but their screaming seemed to give way to a different kind of assault, and all three Seishi fell to their knees.

If Taka had felt mildly violated before, it was nothing compared to this. It wasn't, he registered, really what you could call physical pain, because physical pain had cause and effect and usually you could bite down on your tongue or hit your best friend to get rid of it. What it was, was something deeper, something that reached into every hidden cranny of his being and then proceeded to claw at it. Something that threatened to obliterate his senses and his knowledge of himself, which was threatening on a level he had never imagined to be tangible - but here it was, a threat that was in some ways ontological more than corporeal, though he couldn't make out the difference.

He reached for Tasuki, though the hand that met his was older, gnarled. And Tokaki was looking at him urgently. He spoke - and though Taka couldn't hear him, he knew what he said - and what he meant.

"Tasuki!" he hollered, though there was no hearing himself, not over this unnatural din. But Tokaki understood. Something warm and liquid fell on Taka's hand as the old man twisted away. Taka caught the flame-coloured hair of the bandit and believed it was him - because it had to be him. Reaching blindly for his friend, he grabbed his hand and clung.

And then he concentrated, and it was tremendous effort to draw himself back - it was as though he had been scattered, his being shredded and scattered in places difficult to reach. But he did, with a concentrated and furious sort of effort. He opened his eyes and met crinkly grey ones, looking at him with urgent expectation and similarly concentrated fury.

And he _gave_ - as his friends had all once given to him - and that seemed to the trick, because in the next instant, they were falling, falling... and he lost Tasuki's hand and let go of Tokaki's, and for a blinding, panicked moment, had no way of knowing whether they fell with him or if the dark had reached and claimed them as well...

The next thing he knew was a superficial, but sharp, pain at the back of his head and something digging into his back as he stared at the stars. It was a minute before he could straighten up, to realise that they had landed by a cave - the cave where they had planned to bring Chichiri for Subaru to heal. Dazed, he looked around. "Tokaki-sensei!" he called, ignoring the pain in his back - he had, apparently, landed on some inconveniently shaped rock, which, angered about being landed on, had tried to kick the crap out of his spine. "Tasuki!"

"Right beside you," growled Tasuki, in a low annoyed sort of tone. "Stop yelling. What the hell was that, Taka?"

"I don't know. Where are we?"

"Don't have a clue," said Tasuki, just as helpfully.

Taka looked at him and horror dawned on him. In the very dim light of rising moon, it was hard to make out what was splattered all over Tasuki's coat, especially because his coat was darker than the substance, but Taka knew what blood smelt like. Before he could really stop himself, he reached for the bandit, grabbing him by the coat and proceeding to examine him by patting about him. "Where- where are you-"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" yelled Tasuki, shoving him away in alarm. "GET AWAY FRO- oy!" he cut himself off, looking horrified and concerned, leaning towards a slightly baffled Taka. "Wh- are you bleeding?"

"No, I'm-" He paused, looking at his raised hand, coated in blood and mud from where he had landed. It wasn't their blood - you couldn't spill blood from battling with fake soldiers. But you could if you were a thousand years old and probably not exactly in a position to teleport two full grown men out of the clutches of ... of whatever that had been. He spared Tasuki a glance and then bolted up, at the same time as the bandit. They didn't have to go very far.

Tokaki lay on his back a few yards off, and Taka knew that the dark patch around him was not entirely the shadow of the willow tree he lay under. His body was prone, unmoving and for a moment Taka thought it was over. But as his chest moved and he heard a soft, gurgling sound as he breathed, he knew it wouldn't be that easy.

They were beside him in a second, but neither touched him, for there was no clear sign of where the wound was. Dimly, Taka was aware of Tasuki calling Tokaki's name and telling him to open his eyes. He spoke without expletives, which was a first. But then again, Taka thought with mildy hysteria and a kind of slow, simplistic understanding that was purely rational, this was sort of alarming.

Tasuki was horrified - but Tasuki did not like death. Nor did Taka, who had experienced too many deaths over and over again in his mind, trying to make sense of the loss tha he felt, for people that he had never met, not in his own life - until he had met them and the loss had become as real, if not more, than a loss that was exclusive to his own life - his father's, about eight years ago. But now, as the blood spilled from Tokaki, soaking the ground, profusely and befuddlingly - how could the human body hold that much blood? - he found that it was not real, not even now when there should have been no getting away from it.

"Get Subaru," said Taka, because he wasn't as fast as Tasuki, and because it was the logical to do. He didn't look at Tasuki, and though he was afraid the bandit would freak out even more, he didn't have to repeat himself. Taka leaned closed to Tokaki, careful not to touch him. "Where is it?" he asked, quietly, though he didn't know what he would do even if it was a single wound. But it couldn't be a wound - surely, it wasn't natural for a human body to bleed this much. "Sensei?" And then, when he did not answer, "Tokaki."

"She's not here!" Tasuki said, from somewhere around. "I'm going to the doujo."

And he was gone again, leaving Taka to sit with the old man. He could see that it took a great deal of effort for him to do so, but he finally opened his eyes and looked at Taka for a few moments until he seemed to focus in. Taka opened his mouth to tell him that Tasuki had gone to get Subaru, but stopped himself. Distantly, detachedly, he knew that if Subaru wasn't here then something had to be wrong. But he didn't want to tell Tokaki that, not when he lay like this, losing blood from god knows where.

"Where's the wound?" he asked, instead.

Tokaki, with some effort, but extremely characteristic annoyance, snorted. "I told you not to %#* it up," he growled, finally. Taka started to nod and agree, because that was what you did when a dying man accused you of being an idiot. Because he couldn't think of anything else to say. But Tokaki cut him off. "Where is Subaru?"

"She's not here. Tasuki's gone- no, don't move-"

"I'm not going to go running to look for her, idiot - I just need to - I have a-" Taka reached without thinking as the man tried to shift, catching him by the arm. Tokaki let out a hiss of pain and Taka let go. "Sorry-"

"No," said Tokaki, clutching roughly at his forearm. "Help me."

And Taka did, though every touch seemed to hurt Tokaki, helping him sit up somewhat and allowing the old man's upper body to rest on his lap.

"You will find her," said Tokaki, with the gurgling sound in his chest.

"Yes, Tasuki is-"

"No," snapped Tokaki, almost furiously, but Taka knew that at least half of that was the pain. The grey old eyes met his and there was a gentleness in them that Taka wanted to turn away from. "Subaru will be okay," he told him, with such conviction that it was almost frightening. "Your daughter. You're going to find her."

Taka did not argue - though he wanted to tell the old man not to waste his breath like this. He could think of nothing to say, really. "Are you comfortable?" he asked, finally.

"I'm dying," said Tokaki, sparing him one last look. "It's not a comfortable experience."

"Fair enough," said Taka, and fell silent because he felt stupid and ineffectual and did not know what to do.

Later he would wonder if he should have said something. If Tokaki was uncomfortable, then wasn't it better to speak and distract him from his suffering, instead of sitting there like a moron because he felt awkward? But Tokaki himself said nothing, closing his eyes and settling down, as though waiting for death. Taka didn't know if he slept or if he was awake, or if his lap dug into his back and made it bleed more. e did not know if Tokaki was in exceptional pain or furious because he wanted his wife there and the two incompetent Seishi he had brought along with him didn't know how to find her, or if he had something more to say but just couldn't.

He knew nothing but that the stars travelled across the dark dome of the sky unceasingly even though one of the Byakko seven was dying under them, and that his lap grew extremely wet and cold, before drying up as Tokaki's face grew greyer, a stark contrast against the deep red of his blood against his face, and that he was gone a long time before Tasuki returned, alone, just as the first light of the morning fell on Tokaki's now peaceful face.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So. Right.

I... don't think that was surprising - the anticipatory tone of the former parts of the chapter are probably me being really, really not inclined to write that ending and it's choppy because of the same reason - which is a nice excuse, but this was actually weirdly hard and depressing. Who said writing fanfiction is only for fun? Liars. If there are questions about what the hell happened, then it'll PROBABLY become clearer anyway in a better written chapter. I hope the stuff about their enemy doodlehead's power is becoming clearer now - and also, yes, yes I do use the Chinese names for the constellations to sound cooler.

Thanks to Flashyfirebird for reviewing and to my bunny friend who tells me about typoes (because THOSE are truly evil). Please review! Even if it's to say it sucks! *puppy eyes*

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	18. 17 The Thief

**Chapter Seventeen **

**The Thief**

When Tokaki stopped at the gate of their doujo to inform his wife that, while he respected her greatly and had no doubt that she could hold her own against any foe in the universe as well as a man, she was not coming, Subaru asked him, as a shocked person is apt to do, to explain what he meant. Tokaki, as a person who had used relatively simple words may believe they have the right to do, told her that he meant precisely what he said. At this display of redundancy, Subaru kicked him in the shin, and Taka and Tasuki had the rare pleasure of watching a hunded-and-thirty-whatever-year-old man hope around on one leg.

"Damn it! You old bag!"

"_Who're_ you calling old! I'm still two years younger than you!"

"I think that ceased to matter when we touched a hundred and twenty!"

"Oh, so now I'm old AND incompetent?"

Tokaki rolled his eyes skywards. They weren't old, really; they had certainly not grown more mature in their relationship or anything. She had last kicked him in the shin perhaps two years ago and it hurt exactly as much now as it did back when Byakko had not been summoned. Nice to know some things never changed. "You're not incompetent."

"So I'm coming."

"No, you're not."

"Tokaki-"

"_Subaru_!"

She glared at him, frustrated, before letting out a wail of annoyance, flapping her hands around a little. She still looked like she was trying to do a bad impression of a duck, and it was, to Tokaki, endearing. But that wouldn't make him budge on his stand. He stepped forward, keeping a wary eye on her foot and put both hands on either side of her face. "_Think_, Subaru," he growled. "Who is the only one who can communicate all this with the Empress in Kounan?"

"If you'd just bothered to learn-"

"But I didn't," he said, not very patiently. "So only you can do that. Which one of us has any healing powers?"

"You can do that too-

"I can't take away a whole day within someone's body to eliminate an ailment, can I?"

Subaru closed her eyes. "But I-"

"You have to stay back,," he said, firmly, in a final sort of tone, and this time, she nodded, though she looked very unhappy about it. "Or... better yet, go to the cave, and I'll come get you when it's done. Anyway, I have these two fools to protect me, don't I? If anything happens, I'll just use Tasuki here as a shield." He jerked his head towards Taka and Tasuki, who were both pretending not to be there, mostly because Subaru in a rage was sort of alarming.

The hundred-and-thirty-something-year-old snorted and smacked at his chest. "Baka," she said, with a large amount of affection, before kissing his cheek right above the mark that had proved to bind them together in their destinies. "But if you hit on the young princesses, I will hear about it."

"I'll tell you all about it," grinned Taka.

Subaru have him a Look, that reminded him that he was still basically mud, and his face fell. It was kind of like kicking one of those really small dogs from the Westernmost reaches of Sairou, and made her cringe inwardly as much as a similar act might have made Tokaki's day.

"Keep an eye on him," she thus said, kindly to Taka, and had the pleasure of watching the boy's (well, he was a boy to her) eyes light up as the small dog's might have when given food. Suzaku warriors, she had always thought, were a really adorable and fuzzy bunch of people. "And you," she added, to Tasuki, who grinned and winked, and reminded her that some adorable and fuzzy people were just uncouth.

She watched them leave, a sort of dead weight in the pit of her stomach. They had been quite casual about it, plotting out the raiding of the castle in a manner that suggested near complacency. But the truth, which both Tokaki and her knew well enough, was that they were walking in quite blind.

When they hadn't been looking, the royal palace at Arudo had been transformed into something unfriendly and crude. They had not realised that the changes the new dynasty had made were not merely out of political paranoia, but also out of the long term plans they had concocted for the fate of the realms. It was galling, at their age and with their experiences, to have to admit that they weren't sure what was going on - but that was exactly how it was.

Stay news had arrived from Kutou and Kounan - of the slow but steady downward spiral of Kutou's politcal system and the unspoken of invasion of Kounan. They had left Hokkan alone, so far, though Subaru was not certain why. Perhaps it was the cold climate and the harsh conditions. Or, perhaps it was because Hokkan, it was said, was the country with the strongest and most ancient connection with Taiitsukun and the center. Subaru hoped it was merely the weather; you would have to be either very stupid or a god to want to challenge the powers at the center of the universe. Then again, so far, there had been few signs of stupidity.

They would take the passage through the ruins of the ancient shrine. Who would have ever thought that they would ever use the passage in this manner? It had helped, certainly. How else would they have known that the perpetrator was not the Dowager empress herself, so much as it was her Commander, and that they intended to steal all four Shinzahos from Eiyou? But on the other hand, they still knew very little about their enemy.

Tokaki would not have insisted on her staying behind under normal circumstances - this she knew from experience.

It was several minutes after the last tall figure had disappeared around the last bend along the river that Subaru could turn around. She walked towards the doujo, much slower than she did before, she knew. They both did and neither had felt particularly alarmed by it, so much as bemused by the realisation that they were slowing down, albeit at a lesser pace than normal people. Standing up once they had sat down required a more concentrated effort now; it was never painful or uncomfortable, but there was less of an inclination to get up. It may have been more alarming if they'd had more unfinished business - or if they'd had to go through their lives alone.

But they had lived long and full lives, longer than most because of their powers - and Subaru did admit, readily, that she had helped them along a little every now and again. Neither of them had ever felt the urge to undo the aging process or fight it, other than when they had needed to help the Suzaku seishi out. Now, Subaru didn't think she could perform a spell like that and survive it. There was no fear in her heart about dying, really, but there were, as he had said, things that only they could do - and some things only she could do. Beyond that, it couldn't possibly bother her now, at her age. Everyone died and she rather thought it would be like falling asleep and floating along to a nice restful place.

When she'd once mentioned this to her husband, Tokaki had told her that he suspected the floating part of it might be more like a really annoying long walk through all kinds of crap, and she had informed him quite honestly that he would deserve it for all the people that he had annoyed and all the little Shih Tzus he'd thought of kicking. Really, he was a piece of work. It was probably why she'd married him in the first place.

The rooms of the doujo were quiet. Once there had been a large number of children rushing in and out - in the warm aftermath of Byakko's summoning. But they'd all left slowly, leaving behind quietude and peace in their wake. She locked some of the rooms that had precious things in them - mostly paintings and scrolls - and was about to leave when she paused, uncertain.

Being a seishi and even remotely in tune with one's powers usually meant that one was able to pick up on the metaphysical reverberations caused in the general energy of life as it existed, by a powerful person's chi. But this wasn't like that, not really, so much as it was a subtle shift in the reverberations themselves - the whift of something familiar and yet... yet strange.

Pulling her shawl around herself tighter against the cold night, Subaru walked through the doujo, moving towards the front gate, guided by instinct and the tug of familiarity. As she reached the gate, leaning against the bars to peer outside, she found the street before their house cast in the deep red light of the setting desert sun, completely deserted. Frowning, she turned and then stopped.

The lamps she knew she had just blown out were lit in two rooms of the doujo - where the light cast clearly against the thin veil of their bamboo curtains the shadow of the man who stood within. Subaru felt her heart skip a beat, and not in a particularly pleasant manner. She had an intruder, and although you couldn't commend any intruder on excellent timing, this was a particularly bad time, really. It did not occur to her to be bothered about their possessions, because they had very little you could actually steal and profit from. And that room, she knew, contained nothing of importance but old letters and - ..._ohhhhhh._

Subaru cringed. At this particular conjuncture, either this person was just a stray intruder with no idea what he was getting himself in or someone who knew exactly what he was up to. Those letters were crucial, and she should have destroyed them the moment she'd received them, but she didn't think they would really be evidently conspiratorial even if someone could read them. Either way, she wondered quite seriously if simply leaving was an option. Not that she didn't appreciate a good fight, but if you could avoid it, then why mess around, right?

But then the silhouette shifted, and she felt the man's gaze on her - shocking her with its intensity and penetrativeness - and thwre was, again, the flash of recognition. Slowly, she raised her chin and with a mildly annoyed air, walked back to the doujo. The shadow did not move, but she felt the man's eyes on her, watching her even when she had walked in through the main door and he couldn't possibly be seeing her through the walls.

Finally, she came to the room where the light was on. Though she'd known he would be standing there, her stomach still dropped several inches as she walked in.

He was not young (as long as you did not compare him with her), but the wrinkled lines along his face indicated harsh conditions and a life that had been far rougher than he had bargained for, more than they did age. He was tall, though bony and somehow bedraggled - like a bit of parchment that had been crunched up and tossed aside. But his eyes were bright and alert, hidden behind bushy eyebrows and framed by the crinkled, hardened skin.

"Hamu Dorin," he said, in a raspy sort of voice.

She said nothing, eyeing him warily. Her gaze shifted to his hands, in which he was holding the three precious scrolls of parchment, none of them open. But it was the mark on the back of his hand that had her staring. "You- you're-"

And as he smiled and reached for her, she knew. "My old friend," he said, closing the distance between them.

* * *

Within the first few hours of the journey they had started upon so optimistically, it became evident that it was not the easiest thing to travel upstream along a river. The forest along the sides of the river grew thicker and as they walked further east, they found that the terrain became more rocky and uneven. It started out with a few bumps and enjoyable climbs, but meandering river had effectively hidden behind its most sensuously curving bend the first of what transpired to be many rocky and unforgiving hills, each getting taller than the other.

Overheard, the dark clouds had gathered threateningly overhead, grumbling ominously of an impending storm. The rain was not terrible, not yet - not more than a soft, consistent drizzle. But it did male the rocks slippery and the air cold, and these conjoined to make each inevitable stumble altogether more painful. And none of this was as worrying as the fact that, although it had not rained for very long, the river seemed to be swelling by the hour.

"This isn't good," muttered Reishun, but only because Hikari was struggling with the rocks behind her and couldn't have possibly heard her at this distance. Not that she had found it particularly easy either, but she was taller and longer legs meant that climbing up along the steeper rocks became easier. Hikari was smaller and appeared to have even less experience than she herself did in the face of the wilderness. Reishun had always been a crazily energetic child and climbing did not pose a novelty for her. But even she had to admit, this wasn't an easy climb.

They had to be relatively close to the eastern borders of Kounan. Reishun had of course never seen Kutou and the lay of the land felt new to her in a way that assured her that neither had Nuriko. But she had heard of its climate and terrain, and the wet, rainy, rocky and increasingly steep mountaineous experience they had encountered thus had indicated that they were leaving behind the gentler inclines of her own country.

"Damn river!" yelled Hikari, and Reishun turned to discover she had slipped for the fifth time.

"Don't fall!" she called, illiciting a furious look from the thirteen-year-old. She would have felt the same, really, and if it hadn't been for the sense that things were going from bad to worse, she wouldn't really have issued such obvious instructions. As Hikari straightened, mostly steadily, Reishun looked away towards the rough "path" they were working out for themselves.

"Nuriko-chaaan!"

Reishun snorted, as the tiny Nyan Nyan orb came floating back to her hand. They might all be on the verge of slipping off the rocks and drowning in the notorious Shoryuu river, but at least one of then would be grinning while they did this. You had to appreciate that kind of thing. "Anything?"

"No, Nuriko-chan," she said, sincerely, looking at her with large eyes, as she had about an hour back.

Reishun sighed, unconvinced. "Can you sense anything at all, though?

"Nyan Nyan cannot tell!"

No news was good news, right? Reishun could not believe this. Something was happening and experience suggested it was not positive. The fact that she did not kow what was out there was almost as disturbing as being face to face with it, and the muted . But all that she could think of doing was to keep moving.

"Kowaiineechan need move faster!"

Frowning even more, Reishun looked down to the girl who was now manuevering a large rock. She hadn't said anything to Hikari (and Nyan Nyan was still furious and not talking to her) yet, because she was having enough trouble with the climbing to begin with. Plus, there was no sense in worrying about things that may not even have existed. There was no reason for them to be in trouble, not unless Oda and his grandmother had sold them out. Somehow she doubted that. Nyan Nyan had scoured the area a while back with no success, so perhaps it was nothing.

But it wasn't nothing. Reishun did not like the sense in the pit of her stomach. She didn't like the fact that they had been forced out of an unhelpful and overgrown forest onto the bare rocks that hardly provided any cover, or that although they had been climbing and even her limbs were aching, they hadn't exactly made a lot of progress. "This really isn't good," she muttered again. She felt unprepared and vulnerable, and the fact that everything smelled like a wet horse tinged with pig wasn't really helping matters.

"Hikari?" she called, looking back down again.

"WHAT!" she yelled, not looking up, though Reishun could hear her muttering.

"Nothing, just... come on."

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?"

"Kowaiineechan no yell!"

Reishun cocked her head to the side as a stream of foul words echoed along the mountainside. "I'm going to start hitting you for every dirty word you say," she said, severely. "It is so uncouth."

"Because _that_ is the kind of thing we need to be worrying about right now."

"There is still no reason to be unladylike."

"Reishun! We're cold and wet and there's no food for miles around - and we're randomly heading to a different country without a map! There is _every _reason to be unladylike!"

The girl had a point, but Reishun was firm. "I'm still going to thwack you each time there's a foul word."

"I'm going to push you into the river," said Hikari, grumpily.

Reishun looked at the river below, swirling ominously and reflecting the dark clouds above, and felt even more unsettled. If they were attacked, then they were going to fall into the river and that would be the end of their grand adventure. "I'd like to see you try," she said, with as much good humour as she could manage. Then, as Hikari said nothing, she turned, opening her mouth to ask what was wrong, and paused.

Hikari was looking not at her but away, off towards the thick forests on the other side of the river, with such intent that it scared Reishun. Slowly, she turned to squint but saw nothing but the deep darkness of the thick forest.

"What-"

"I don't know," said Hikari, frowning uneasily. "I thought I saw something but- I don't know."

And again, Reishun had to suppress the sense that the sound of the rain falling on the river was blotting their perception. She looked at the Nyan Nyan orb in her hand, but the little girl said nothing either. "Come on," she said, finally, quietly. "I think we need to get off these rocks."

* * *

The palace was rustling with an undercurrent of hushed gossip and awed whispers. Here she is again, they said, some with a modicum of irritation but most with a sense of awe and reverence. Here she is, the girl who saved us so many years ago - the girl who summoned Suzaku, the maiden from the legend. But why is she dressed like a man? You could almost feel the wave of energy that she'd mustered up, a kind of efflorescence of previously dormant faith. If she was here, then the beast-god she had summoned was not gone. If she was here, then there was still reason to believe in the power of the ancient scroll.

As he walked through the palace, the fury in his blood erupted at every step, fruitless and aggravating. Why had she returned? Was the universe now truly fighting back? He longed to confer with his god and master and ask him what to do, and the compulsion made him even more furious that his careful planning and centuries of waiting for the right moment had been interrupted when all had been proceeding so well. Even if a Suzaku seishi had vanished from under his nose, even if the power of the center had invaded the palace despite his defenses, it was too late. For many centuries, he had planned and waited - did ishe/ireally believe that summoning the Suzaku seishi would help her cause?

Jiu was not bothered, even if he was plagued by a persistent and ever-expanding sort of rage that comes from the knowledge of one's own ignorance and helplessness. The Suzaku seishi were not accomplished in the manner of, perhaps, the Seishi in Sairou. That, he knew, had taken many years of carefully strategisising against the more basic instincts of the seishi. It was a mistake to believe you could control people without understanding them, or to think that merely because they were mortal, human beings were powerless. But even so, some were more gullible and stupid than others - the case in point being the fool that ruled Kounan at the moment, whose contant longing had been remarkably easy to maneuver. The Suzaku seishi had fallen before and were not half as powerful as their former foes. They had triumphed only because they stuck together. Relationships were certainly powerful, but they could be fractured. He knew that as well as any.

So it did not bother him that the seishi were no longer here. The powers on his side were strong.

But the appearance of the priestess... this was troubling. Not only did it remind people of Suzaku, when they had edged so casually and compliantly towards forgetfulness. But it troubled him. What had she come here for? How much did she know? Exactly what was she planning? Surely, this was some kind of strategic move on Taiitsukun's part.

* * *

"So you're here because you angered the book?"

"... Yes." Miaka looked as sheepish as she had when she'd believed that Houki was Nuriko and had discovered, in a manner of speaking, that she wasn't Nuriko and was, in fact, a woman. It was endearing and a little embarrassing, even though Houki was more than a little disappointed to find out that this was some kind of strange twist of fate. It helped that she was here, but really, why couldn't the god's chosen ones come with some kind of plan to fix everything? It was foolish to place such hopes on some people, but you couldn't help it when you had been brought up on stories about how a single young girl would one day save the universe.

"And it tossed you into Kour- Ryuuen's brother's house?"

"And then he found me," Miaka went on, beginning to look even more uncomfortable.

Houki thought of of Rokou. She had only met him once, but it was clear that he was a nice man. Even if he lacked all the charisma that his younger brother had possessed. A simple man who loved his family and did not want to have his routines interrupted by strange occurences, like Miaka landing up in his house in the middle of the night. "Oh dear," she said, cringing inwardly.

"Well," said Miaka, clearing her throat, "he was understandably upset. The last time I was here his house was flooded and he was forced to deal with his brother's death, you know? But even so he was quite friendly. Er, that is, until he realised that his wife was missing."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. See," said Miaka, with a great deal of irritation, "I think the book is just going crazy. It's like an old lady - like Taiitsukun, possibly - who's just getting old and cranky and impatient."

Houki cleared her throat awkwardly and said nothing, out of reverence. Of course, the woman before her had ever reason to be annoyed. It had taken a great deal of coaxing (and no small measures of tea) to calm her down after she realised that she had missed Hikari only by a few hours, and to stop her from running after her daughter, as was her instinct. But she was being watched, Houki reminded her, and running off would not help anyone. She had settled for being deeply annoyed and extremely restless in Houki's private chambers. For all the restlessness and the lack of plan, Houki was glad to have her here. You couldn't really miss someone you had never known, but having her return was like the return of an old friend.

"And then of course I had to hit him on the head with a large vase to stop him from yelling so much and run here before I got into more trouble."

Even if the old friend came around trailing a series of misadventures behind her. "Poor Rokou," said Houki, with a small smile.

"Yes," said Miaka, grimly, "I think his wife is in my world. Hikari must have traded in her school uniform - god, how am I supposed to find her now? What if she'd hurt or something has happened? What if she's in more trouble now that I'm here? And where is Taka?" She stopped pacing, finally, turning to look at Houki with pure desperation and helplessness imprinted on her face.

Houki's heart went out to her, though she was silent for a long while. Miaka flopped on the bed, the modest grey of her trousers and light pink of her shirt quite out of place in the bright and rich colours with which Houki's room had been decorated - though she fit right in. Houki may have done better in more subtle colours. Though then again, by Kounan's standards, her bright clothes probably were subtle. They said nothing for a long while, letting the oddness of the situation wash over them.

Houki had never felt so alienated or afraid before. Even when Kutou had attacked Kounan, she had known that there was little she herself could do about it. But the burden of knowing just enough to be one of the few who could do anything to begin with was terrible in itself. She looked at Miaka, whose shoulders were slumped. The lines of age had only begun to very gently caress her features. She would not age as gracefully as Houki herself, perhaps, but her features would always reflect the happiness and hope she symbolised for the land. Even now, when she was frowniing and looking quite sad, the lines etched on her fact spoke of many happy days and moments of laughter. Houki did not know if it was appropriate or not, but she did draw her strength from this.

"This is only the beginning," she said, finally. "But we're not entirely unprepared, Miaka-sama. I think Kouri- Reishun will protect your daughter no matter what." Miaka looked up and her eyes mirrored the pain in Houki's. "She loves her... as he would have."

Miaka nodded, understanding this. Somehow, the presence of Reishun was a reminder both painful and comforting. And somewhere in her heart, there was great relief mingled with the same guilt that plagued Taka. She wanted Hikari to know everything, especially about Nuriko's hope and love which had contributed to such an extent to making her who she was. There were so many things that she wanted to tell her daughter, and for some reason, she felt as though it was too late now. "I know," she said, a moment later, with firm belief in her voice.

"And we can help her. I do not know what is going on, exactly, Miaka-sama, but maybe between the two of us, we can make sense of it. I confess to feeling... relieved about having you here," she said, now somewhat tentatively. "Perhaps we never had the time to be friends, but we have so many in common. And I don't... I wish... I have wished," she paused, as Miaka realised she was fumbling with her words. Only, of course, she did it so gracefully that it seemed more like an intentional skip than a fumble. Her eyes drifted to the empress's hands, which were clasped on her lap, and Miaka felt a rush of empathy. "I have wished not to be alone in my kn-"

"You're not alone," said Miaka, firmly, interrupting. "I don't know what's going on either, but I know some."

Houki looked at her and smiled, almost shyly. It was kind of strange on the empress of a whole country, especially when the smile turned somewhat sly. "To begin with," she said, and took a breath as though she had been waiting for many years to say this, "the prime minister is a big... donkey's behind."

She paused as, most unexpectedly, she found herself battling with the desire to grin like a monkey. Being the empress, she did not grin like any animal of any kind, really. At best, she smiled like a small chipmunk. After a moment of staring, both of them dissolved into amused, slightly hysterical but mostly very friendly laughter.

* * *

The trouble was that there _was _no getting off these rocks.

As the afternoon grew steadily darker, the overcast sky blotting out all hopes of sunshine and of getting dry in the near future, they finally found themselves forced to pause at the first sign of something like a shelter - at least insofar as that there was a natural rocky roof over their heads, and though they were exposed to the cold from all sides and neither dared attempt to light a fire, they could rest their aching limbs and experience intimately the gradual inching of their clothes and their hair towards dryness.

It was sort of like the pictures of dolmens that Hikari had scene in her text books, though she had never seen anything akin to it, never really having been out on a hike or a trek, beyond brief excursions she'd been taken on for her science classes in school. She told Reishun as much and then spent the next hour or so explaining the concept of school and science and day trips, instead of talking about the impending danger that they were both aware of but did not want to talk about.

To her surprise, it brought no great bout of homesickness, not more than what she was already experiencing, at any rate, and she realised that it really wasn't those things that she missed about her life in her parents' world. Not the everyday hustle or the routine, though she quite enjoyed school when she was sleeping without being plagued by dreams about ugly brown handbags, or even her own bed - though she would have killed for a soft mattress. What she missed was Hanako and her parents and the assurance that at the end of the day, she would go home.

"At least you've been whining a lot less," Reishun told her, grinning.

"I have reason to whine, okay? I know I'm choosing to do something, but any person with half a brain would have to choose this - and I choose to whine," she finished decisively, and more than a little childishly. It wasn't the greatest attempt at humour, but Reishun snorted, shaking her head.

Silence fell in the wake of this, an uncomfortable silence, as they watched the rain fall from under the 'dolmen'. The undercurrent of muted power still persisted. Though they were both equally aware, neither had spoken of it until now. It was after a long while that Hikari shifted so she was sitting closer to Reishun, their backs against one of the rocks holding up their "roof". "What shall we do?" she asked very very quietly, voicing both their fears of the uncertainty in four quiet words.

There was no answer. Hikari had not really expected one anyway. There was little to do now but wait - moving along the slippery rocks in the dark was not something either of them wanted to attempt. They would wait till the first light of the morning and then take to the climb again. Just thinking about having to tackle the steep high rocks on short and somewhat stubby legs made Hikari feel exhausted.

Reishun drew out her cloak from the bag lying beside them and threw it over them both, putting her arm around the younger girl's shoulders. With a silent understanding, Hikari settled against her. A while later, the gentle pressure on the top of her head told her that Reishun's head had settled against hers.

* * *

The storm broke somewhere in the night, and the rain came pouring down the mountainside in a violent cascade that would have made Reishun think of the cloudburst from when she had been little if she had been awake. But both Hikari and her slept like the dead, worn out from having to deal with pigs, grandmothers, and persistently unfriendly but very silent auras. though dawn broke, the light of the sun remained blotted out by the dark rainclouds, which poured down unendingly, almost as though they were weeping as a tiny desperate child may have. So the first light of the morning passed unnoticed.

Even as the night vanished and the day turned gradually grey, Reishun and Hikari slept on, lying on one another in positions they would regret in the coming day. Nyan Nyan, who was far less exhausted from simply having floated along the mountainside when the others had had to climb each painstaking step, woke up first. She considered pinching the Shinzaho of Suzaku awake - though being a nice demi-goddesss, she decided against it, even though her highly helpful nature did drive her to the belief that Kowaiineechan would benefit a lot from a sound pinching.

Nyan Nyan was not often perplexed by people, usually being very in tune with human beings - but Hikari confused her. There was in her the conglomeration of forces that made her a daughter of Suzaku, which had helped Nyan Nyan find her - or helped her find Nyan Nyan, and Chichiri and Nuriko-chan, whom Nyan Nyan was very happy to be around now. Hikari-chan could have found the other Shinzaho if she had wanted to, and Nyan Nyan would have told her as much.

But sometimes, more often than other times, Hikari became Kowaiineechan and Kowaiineechan was mean and, well, stupid, especially when Hikari-chan was afraid. Nyan Nyan did not like it, because usually it was only with food and sleep that Hikari-chan came out after that. Once Kowaiineechan was out, then she was mean and stupid all day long. And mean and stupid people rarely accepted any kind of help, and you could not help people who didn't want to be helped, and it was really stupid! Nyan Nyan pouted at Hikari's presently peacefully sleeping form. Why Kowaiineechan was soooo mean and stupid? She was so like her mother, but without all the niceness that Miaka-chan had. What could have happened?

Nyan Nyan had a good mind to not help Kowaiineechan at all! But then, they would waste the day being stupid again and that wasn't smart, right? Right. So Nyan Nyan made up her mind, and floated out to find food, and also, of course, to take a look around to see if she could find the unfriendly forms that they had sensed the day before.

Which was why when the nagging sensation that she needed to Wake Up Right Now prodded Hikari in the back of her head and snapped her out of her dreams, it was to a total absence of Nyan Nyan. Hikari grudgingly cranked an eye open, reluctant to wake up and face the day as always. All she saw was the bare and mostly dry floor of their shelted, lit quite well by grey light of the rainy day. This meant, she registered, that they had missed the dawn, because this was probably the day at its brightest. And, she registered, Nyan Nyan was missing. She would forget that she'd realised this at all, and not give any thought to how she may have realised this, in the chaos that inevitably unfolded a few seconds later.

Having come to these conclusions, Hikari closed her eye and went back towards the blessed comfort of sleep.

And, a few seconds later, she bolted up, her connecting with Reishun's chin and Reishun's head, in turn, meeting the rock behind iher/i head.

"OW!" yelled Reishun, outraged. "What is WRONG with you!"

"We're late!" Hikari told her, mildly hysterical, as though she was about to miss the schoolbus. This made even less sense in the light of the fact that ever since she had started to go to school, her dad had driven her there and back.

"No!" snapped Reishun. "We're late AND our heads are hurting. Idiot."

This made so much sense that Hikari chose to glower. Reishun glowered right back and they sat there, cranky and rubbing their aching heads. A few moments passed. "And Nyan Nyan is not here," Hikari told Reishun, grumpily, "and-"

"NYAN NYAN!"

"Oh, good."

"GOOD MORNING NURIKO-CHAAAN! GOOD MORNING KOWAIIINEEECHAN!"

Reishun beamed, her irritation apparently forgotten. Hikari eyed her. She wondered if Reishun had any idea how annoying this was, but she probably didn't. She was a Morning Person and Morning People were a weird breed of people who only drank decaf and liked sunshine and kittens. She could understand why the universe of the four gods wanted her to find the three other Shinzahos, really, but why did she have to do it with Morning People?

"Nyan Nyan bring food!" Nyan Nyan announced, dropping various kinds of fruits and nuts on the rocky floor. "Kowaiineechan no be angry now?"

"Awww!" said Reishun, clearly in love. "That's so sweet! Of course she isn't angry!"

Hikari was eyeing a suspicious looking fruit. "What's that?"

Reishun smacked her in the shoulder, causing her to smash into a rock. "She's VERY grateful!" she assured Nyan Nyan, giving Hikari a meaningful look. Hikari would have probably responded in kind if she hadn't been rubbing her shoulder in pain. "All of this look so good!"

It took a minute of Reishun making yummy noises and of Nyan Nyan and Reishun ignoring Hikari to allow the latter the space to wake up properly and feel more human. Then, she felt somewhat ashamed and edged over to join them. "Sorry. Nyan Nyan," she said, and discovered how gratifying a simple word of apology could be, really, when it was responded to with a flying tackle and much hugging. And although she could have sold Reishun to a slave trader for a cup of coffee, Hikari found herself fighting back a pleased sort of smile. She even bit into the questionable looking fruit and found that it wasn't half bad. It tasted like chocolate, she informed them, sounding almost awed - and when asked, stated, of course, that chocolate, like coffee, was an indescribable wonderful thing and should only be spoken of in hushed and reverent tones.

They decided to save some of the fruit for later ("To munch when we're cold and bedraggled and being pelted by the rain on the mountainside," as Reishun said). "Grab the bag," said Reishun, folding the cloak they'd slept under.

Hikari turned and then paused, staring at the bare floor of the rock shelter. There was a lot of rock, some nut crumbs, but no sign of any bag. "Um?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

"What does that even _mean_?" started Reishun, shaking her head and turning around.

Then, she stopped too, perplexed. A silent ripple of uneasiness passed between them as they turned around in their spots a little stupidly. Hikari didn't know what to be more appalled about - that someone had stolen their bag while they'd been sleeping or the fact that the stolen bag had nothing in it, other than a few coins and some clothes. Who the hell needed a few coins on thse hills? It was astounding because it was so utterly ridiculous and quit anti-climatic given Hikai's near-conviction that they would be killed by morning. But there was no arguing with it. There was no bag.

"What the _hell_?" asked Hikari, finally.

"I... don't know," said Reishun, flummoxed.

"What the- when did- how- oh this is... _weird_," finished Hikari, looking at Reishun, distressed. They hadn't been killed, which was what Hikari had half suspected would happen in the night, but they had been robbed, of their most useless possession. "Was it there when you left, Nyan Nyan?"

Nyan Nyan pouted, her lips wobbling dangerously. "Nono," said Hikari, alarmed. "Nonono. Don't you cry - it's okay! It's a useless bag, right, Reishun?"

"Completely."

"And this is fine."

"Absolutely." Nyan Nyan settled for a sniff, clambering into Reishun's arms and clinging onto the older girl, who patted her with a bedfuddled sort of look on her face. "It's just... very strange," she finished.

They stood there, in utterly baffled silence, for a few minutes longer. Finally, Hikari shook her head. "So I guess we should... go?" she asked, looking at Reishun, whose expression would have been more comical if Hikari wasn't sure that she too looked like an alarmed llama.

"I suppose so?" said Reishun, quirking an eyebrow.

Hikari put the fruits in the cloak and tied it up. And they trailed out, Reishun carrying both Nyan Nyan and the cloak bundle on her back, mostly because Hikari promptly slipped down the first rock she could find. It was still raining, with its mournful and depressed air that did not make either of them feel better. Somehow, though they couldn't have possibly known how, they'd missed the bus. Or carriage. Or whatever.

It was just very, _very _odd.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Curtains in ancient China? And for that matter, chocolate in ancient China? o.O; I honestly don't know - and if anyone does, I would love to know. I read somewhere that they did not use cloth, but then I also used elsewhere that they did, and it seemed that bamboo may be more effective against the desert dust? I have, honestly, no idea. Other than that, I have nothing to say, except ... why helloo - and that link saying "review this chapter" is your friend :D *ahem* Thanks, as always, to Flashyfirebird, whose reviews always keep me going. :)

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	19. 18 Rage of the Shoryuu

**Chapter Eighteen**

**Rage of the Shoryuu**

* * *

The sobbing in the bathroom - which had started up again a little while ago - had stopped several minutes ago, though Yui and Hanako, through a silent strategic understanding, had said little at, to or even around the door since. Instead, they sat there and drank the tea that Keisuke had so thoughtfully made for them.

Really, Yuuki-sensei wasn't a bad sort. Admittedly, he had abandoned Hanako to explain things to Miaka and he freaked out about crying women, but he was nice. He made tea and even if he was alarmed y crying women, he had rescued Hana from Minami-sensei. For lack of anything else to do while they waited, Hanako told Yui all about her eventful morning, and was rewarded with a small smile.

"That sounds like Keisuke," Yui said, nodding. "This Minami - is he the chemistry teacher?"

"You know him," said Hanako, eyes widening.

"He's been there a while. We always thought he was very angry because he's no- erm, he's never been married," amended Yui, tactfully, drawing a grin from Hanako.

"We have the same theory," she said, conspiratorially. It was probably something a lot of people had thought through many generations of school-goers.

They grinned and then fell silent.

It was not easy to communicate with Yui, who wasn't very communicative, though mostly nice. Unlike Miaka, who couldn't be quiet very long herself, Yui was ... very reserved and not prone to saying stupid things. It was a pity, because stupid things always made these kinds of things easier. But in some ways, it was easier to ask Yui a more serious question than it may have been to ask Miaka.

And so, after a sip of the very nice tea to fortify herself, Hanako pressed her. "How did you come back?" she asked, biting her lip, and looking at her with a steady, anxious kind of expression. "From- from the book, I mean."

The older woman did not answer immediately, and for a moment, Hanako wondered if perhaps she had misread Yui. It was rare that she failed to understand people and she had enough pigheaded thirteen-year-old assurance for this doubt to last only a minute. She sat silently while Yui thought it over, and was rewarded with an answer a few moments later.

"I- well, the first time, I don't know... It just happened on its own. I think the book was only wait for Miaka. And then, when Miaka was sent back, it took me. No matter how hard I tried to wish myself back after that, I ... couldn't come back, not until I wished for it, from Seiryuu."

"The Azure Dragon god?"

"Yes. I wished for him to send both Miaka and me back to this world."

There was a ringing honesty in her words, which made Hanako slightly uneasy. Honesty was defensive sometimes - as though to absolve oneself of past transgressions by uttering them out loud. Hanako didn't know how this may have been a transgression - surely, coming back home with one's friend was the right thing to do - but there was a vulnerability in the words that put her on the alert somewhat.

"How was Miaka-san sent back?" she asked, tentatively.

"Taiitsukun did it. They went to Mt. Taikyoku. But that is sealed to Hikari-chan for the moment," Yui added, as Hanako's shoulder's slumped.

"That's a soup," said the young girl, almost pouting.

"It is," Yui agreed, and fell silent.

Hanako considered other questions she wanted to ask. She was curious about Nakago, of course, her romantic mind working overtime. But she didn't think asking Yui if she had been in love with him was very appropriate.

"I guess it's about... what the book needs you to do, then?" she asked, looking at Yui.

But she knew, the moment she had spoken, that this had somehow been an even more inappropriate thing to say. The older woman did not look back. Nor did she answer the question. Yui sort of froze, becoming motionless in a way that was somehow very obvious and that unnerved Hanako more than the somewhat brittle silence that fell in the wake of an innocent query. The young girl opened her mouth to apologise, but Yui cut her off by standing up.

"I'm going to go check on Tetsuya and Keisuke," she announced, a little too assertively, with a smile that was a little too brilliant, and walked out of the room, leaving Hanako to sigh and smack her head.

She should have realised, really. So much for reading people right. There had been so many hints that Yui's experiences in the book hadn't been great. Hanako obviously didn't know what the heck had happened, but she could tell that much. Glowering darkly at the floor, she shook her head.

It took her a whole minute to realise that the bathroom door had opened.

Then, perceiving a persistent pressure at the back of her head, as though someone was watching her very, very intently, Hana turned to stare in something like alarm at the red-eye seamstress.

"She is gone?" asked the woman.

Hanako blinked. "What?"

"The Seiryuu-no-Miko... she is gone?"

"Wh- oh, yes" said Hanako, nodding. Then she frowned, raising an eyebrow. Was this woman _afraid_ of Yui? That was a bit odd, even though Hanako could sort of imagine why someone might be afraid of Yui. But the seamstress had no way of knowing that she was, personality wise, a bit of a timebomb. "She- why-' Hanako shook her head. Small things first. "Are you okay?" she asked, instead.

"Oh," said the seamstress, nodding, and going a little pink. It was both slightly strange and strangely endearing. She was probably a few years older than Yuuki-sensei, but she was in fact shorter than Hanako, and without the yelling and running around, the general smallness of her combined with the general roundness of her and made her seem altogether ... well, cuddly. Hana had a teddy bear like that, pink nose and everything. She had to fight down an obnoxious and overfriendly grin - really, it would be extremely tragic if she dashed into the loo just as soon as she'd come out. "Yes. I am fine. I ... apologise for my conduct."

Hanako shook her head. "You... pretty much fell through a book into a strange world," she said, in an understanding sort of voice.

"I felt quite disoriented," agreed the small woman. "But I could have composed myself."

It should have been awkward, because, in all their yammering for her to get out, they'd really mostly forgotten to consider what they would do once she was out. What _were_ you supposed to say to an ancient Chinese kitchen-wrecking seamstress with a propensity to lock herself into bathrooms? But it was strangely easy to smile and be reassuring - probably because the nice woman was ... well, a nice woman who was open to being reassured. "It's alright," said Hanako. "Oh, I'm... Hanako. I don't know if you caught that-"

"I did," said the woman, looking mildly sheepish, and added, as though to prove her point, "Sakamoto Hanako. I am Li Fen."

"Pretty name," said Hanako, grinning now. "Do you- do you want to wash up or something?"

Li Fen bowed, to Hanako's great and everlasting amusement. "No, Sakamoto Hanako," she said, courteously. "I have already used the water in the large bowl to wash my face."

"The water in the-" Hanako blanched. "...oh _god_."

"Was I not meant to?" she asked, looking thoroughly horrified, but Hanako took her firmly by the wrists (avoiding her hands) and dragged her right back into the bathroom.

* * *

"This is ridiculous!" yelled Hikari, several hours later, over the unbelievably noisy rain. It wasn't windy or stormy or anything. It only poured, relentless and freezing - although the latter had stopped bothering Hikari after the third time she'd slipped and fallen, as, since then, the pain in her knee had blocked out much else.

The rain had poured without stopping since morning, only getting worse as the day grew older. By afternoon, the river was swelling dangerously, making a constantly rumbling sort of sound that unnerved Hikari. And even though she had made up her mind not to crib about things, she found that shaking her fist at the sky (when she wasn't falling off the rocks, that is) seemed to make her feel better.

"Damn stupid country! Damn stupid rocks! Damn stupid enemy people - this is a GREAT strategy! Just make it rain to such a point that the river swells up and we're all drowned!" She looked up at Reishun, who was waiting very patiently at the top of the next large rock to give her a hand up, Nyan Nyan concealed somewhere in the folds of her clothing. "I hope your lover is worth this! What, is it never dry in this country? How much can it possibly rain? Oh, fine. Fine!"

She yanked herself up along the rock enough for Reishun to bend down and yank her up by the scruff of her collar. This made her feel mildly like a crabby puppy.

"How's the knee?" asked Reishun, almost too kindly.

"I don't want to make a fuss about that," said Hikari, grumpily, as the thunder roared overhead, making Reishun roll her eyes.

"Good job not fussing!" said Reishun, straining her voice to be heard over the din. Really, Reishun really didn't have the greatest amount of patience for whining children, but Hikari had fallen down so much in the last few hours that it seemed unfair to yell at her, on top of everything else. Not to mention that Hikari's creative whining seemed to distract the both of them enough from that they were making no progress and the strange individual who had stolen their bag was probably still following them.

Twice now, Reishun herself had spotted movement on the other side of the river, and though she'd not mentioned it to the younger girl, she was certain that Hikari had picked up on it. And though they both joked about the commander from Sairou having decided to overwhelm them by making the heavenly beings make water on them (1), the intensity of the rain was beginning to make them both somewhat uneasy.

Not that it wasn't supposed to rain in these parts of the country. Reishun had remembered in a timely manner (which is to say, when they were irrefutably _on_ the rocks by the river with nowhere to really go but straight up) all the stories that her village elders had told them, about how notorious the Shoryuu was for flooding without too much warning. If the river flooded, they would be swept away, and even if they didn't die by crashing against a rock or something, they would find themselves a lot further away from Kutou than they already were.

But they didn't talk about this. Seemingly, in the last couple of days, they'd decided not to talk about the serious problems they were having, or the fact that they were definitely being followed, and the muted sense of something unpleasant continued to brew around them like bad stew. Talking about it would do them no good. So they cribbed. Or, well, Hikari cribbed and Reishun mostly put up with it.

Except now, when, once she had patted the dirt of her shoulder, she poked said shoulder, illiciting a satisfying 'ow!'. "He's not my lover!" she yelled. "And you really need to hurry up - I know it's not easy, but you climb in front of us now."

Rubbing her shoulder, Hikari made a face. "Fine," she said, through her teeth, proceeding to stare at the rather large rock before her.

Reishun sighed. "Here," she said, picking her up with both hands, lifting her straight over her head and depositing her on top of said rock with a bit of a toss. She was greeted with a stunned, speechless sort of look as she managed to yank herself up a couple of seconds later. Then, she caught Hikari's furiously baffled expression and grinned.

"_That's_ how you've been doing it," said Hikari, irrationally exasperated. "You're not exceptionally good at climbing or fuelled by your love for that idiot-"

"Hey!" said Reishun, still grinning.

"You're just strong from your stupid powers! _Argh_!"

Snorting, Reishun cut her off by picking her up again and depositing her on the top of the next huge boulder. As long as she didn't end up tossing her _into_ a rock, this could work faster. Really, she wouldn't have wanted to take the risk if it hadn't been for the fact that the rapids were growing, well, more rapid and she was terrified that in the next hour or so, the river would flood over. She hadn't the slightest notion of what to do in a flood but getting to a higher point - in the very least, a nice solid tree - seemed like a smart idea.

"Anyway," she said, hauling herself up with greater ease and grace (which was, as a bonus, galling to Hikari who had landed on her butt with about as much grace as a newborn calf), "he's not an idiot. He's just..."

"Confused?" suggested Hikari, raising an eyebrow pleasantly.

"_Wrong_," finished Reishun. "Doesn't know what he wants."

"And of course you do."

"Yes. Look, I know it sounds like I'm the crazy girl with a severe case of stupid infatuation? But I'm _not_ wrong about this. We _would_ be perfect for each other. He's... let's say, moody and prone to being sad and I-"

"Would be very good at beating the depression out of him," finished Hikari, and yelped as Reishun removed her from this rock and placed her on the next. "A little warning, please? And why didn't you do this before?"

"I thought it would be more self-actualising for you to at least try?" suggested Reishun, somewhat obnoxiously. "And I wouldn't beat him up - I just happen to be very good at cheering people up. I have special abilities." She found Hikari giving her a very questionable, suggestive sort of look and almost lost her holding.

"NOT THAT!" she clarified, going very red, completely appalled as Hikari burst out laughing. "Where does a kid like you get such a perverted mind! Oh, shut up," she finished, picking up Hikari and tossing her with just a little more bounce to the next rock.

To her surprise and satisfaction, Hikari did shut up. "That almost never works with you," Reishun began, hauling herself up, before she realised _why_ Hikari had stopped laughing.

Sitting on the rock before them, looking infinitely innocuous, was her bag.

* * *

It was a quiet funeral. No one said anything, and aside from 'is that enough wood?' no one said anything. To their surprise, only they attended it - they had expected soldiers to come pouring in halfway through. But no one came. Nothing happened, nothing had changed seemingly. As though the country had forgotten their warriors to so great an extent that the passing of one its oldest protectors made no difference to them. Even the fortress, which towered over the city at a distance, did not seem affected.

They waited until the funeral pyre was burnt to the last ember, even though they both honestly wondered if they had the time to wait. Subaru was missing and perhaps they were wasting precious time, but neither of them had the slightest notion of how to begin to look for her. Taka had taken it with no great surprise that Tasuki hadn't been able to find her. The death of one of their own had hit each of them so hard that it was like having a part of themselves ripped out. If there had been anyway to get to them, Subaru would have done so. Though there had been no surprise attack, which was altogether more surprising, neither of them wanted to leave Tokaki unattended.

Once the body had turned to ash, Taka collected the remains, and buried them in Tokaki's shawl, which they had removed and washed. They bathed, in order to not turn up in the city covered in blood, and, though neither spoke of it, to wash off the lingering smell of the funeral smoke from themselves. It followed them, though. Like blood, it was not the kind of smell you could ever really get out of your nostrils.

Then they left, their clothes and hair damp and limbs freezing from bathing in the evening, when the air turned chilly. But this was a small relief, almost. There were very few instances in his life when Tasuki found himself unable to speak, but this was one such instance, and the discomfort from the cold made his frustration mildly more bearable.

God, he hated this country.

They found the doujo as Tasuki had left it. In fact, there was such an air of constancy about it that Tasuki knew nothing had changed. He told Taka this, though of course Taka wanted to look around anyway, adding a superfluous layer of futility to their quest. Tasuki was patient for about two minutes, while Taka walked through the rooms, looking around as though in deep meditation. It was annoying because he had done the same this morning, and because he was tired and really, really sad under his crankiness and because neither of them was either a woman or Mitsukake and didn't exactly go around 'talking about it'.

As Taka entered the room with Subaru and Tokaki's scrolls and letters, Tasuki let out a breath. "I told you I've looked through this," he said, with only a hint of a whine in his gruff voice.

Taka didn't look up, brushing through the letters. "You might have missed something."

Tasuki raised an eyebrow. "I _didn't_ miss anything"

"I'm just saying you _could_ have," said the other man, stopping to tilt his head at a particular scroll. The characters on it, Tasuki only very dimly noticed, were similar to the characters in the cave, but before he could have questioned that (which he wouldn't have, to be fair), Taka said, "Subtlety is not your middle name."

"What the %*$) is that supposed to mean?" demanded Tasuki, making Taka turn to give him an incredulous look.

"Tasuki! Your idea of subtlety was to tell Tokaki and Subaru everything!"

Tasuki gritted his teeth. "No, that was because you're a %(^*#() _idiot_ and have forgotten that TRUSTING YOUR FRIENDS is GOOD thing, Taka."

Never mind that subtlety was not his preferred mode of operation or anything. It was still galling to be accused of being unsubtle by the person whose idiocy you had ever so thoughtfully _not_ mentioned. Admittedly, it wasn't very thoughtful to scare a pussyfootin', whining _ass_ like Taka, but that wasn't _Tasuki's_ fault, for Suzaku's sake. As Taka opened his mouth to argue, Tasuki cut him off.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you? Why would your old sensei NOT want to help you! Sure, they stand for Byakko, but SAIROU is not BYAKKO! It's just a %*%*#((# STUPID country which stands for screwing everyone else over! _Why would they stand for that_?"

Taka had the decency to look at least slightly apologetic. "There's nothing wrong with being careful-"

"_Careful_!" Tasuki exploded, nearly purple. "CAREFUL IS WHAT GOT YOU IN THIS MESS TO BEGIN WITH!"

Taka opened his mouth, but Tasuki was done with him arguing and being a moron. There were some things in life you did not question. For Tasuki, that had always been his friends - whether it was because he knew he could live with them without killing them, unlike his family, or because he knew they'd sacrificed their lives for him! Well, for him and for Taka and Miaka and Chichiri, and Kounan and generally for things being better. You didn't honour your friends by being stupid. You honoured them by making sure that things REMAINED better, and Taka had failed at that.

"CAREFUL IS WHY YOU DIDN'T TELL YOUR DAUGHTER ABOUT US."

"Tasuki!" snapped Taka, but Tasuki wasn't half done.

"NO!" he yelled, on a roll. "Let me %*%*( remind you, Taka, that people have died FOR YOU. For YOU and MIAKA to be HAPPY, TOGETHER. Nuriko took that horse up that %*%(#))# hill like a %*%#()) idiotic bitch only because she wanted to make sure of that. But you FORGOT that and you didn't tell Hikari about the six stupid people who've had faith in the two of you, you goddamn cowardly lia-"

It didn't surprise him when Taka punched him, though he was too busy yelling to block it. It was almost a relief, even, to launch himself at him and proceed to attempt to pummel him in turn. Unlike with Kouji, who was strong but no Suzaku Seishi and who had, also, never really pissed Tasuki off this much, the bandit did not have to hold back on his punches out of fear that he may actually dislodge his spine. It was a relief to not care about his stupid spine and to have an actual go at it, while knowing, on some level, that he wouldn't snap it because they were as evenly matched now as they had been eighteen years ago.

There was no Miaka here to guilt him into stopping, no Chichiri to push them apart by magic. Each crunch and grunt of pain was even more satisfying with no Mitsukake to heal them afterwards. There was no one at all, other than the two of them and their infinite rage and unspoken horror. It was, in some ways, the most healing thing to try to kill each other. Tasuki was furious and though even he knew that it wasn't all frustration with Taka and that he would forgive him, lashing out physically made it better, if in no other manner then because it made the expression and the implicit things neither of them could say as congruent as possible.

They stumbled and fell over, though it didn't stop Taka from kicking Tasuki in the shins or the latter from punching him in the jaw. At some point they half stood, half stumbled up again, but then they tripped over something lying inconveniently on the floor. Tasuki didn't know how it happened, but he felt his back crash against something hard and solid, just as he kicked at Taka, and somehow the momentum had them both tumble with a great force to the wooden floor.

And then, somewhat alarmingly, they went right _through_ the wooden floor, which sort of cracked but essentially just slid open as a trapdoor might, and suddenly they were no longer punching each other and cursing at each other so much as clinging to one another and yelling incoherently. It lasted all of a second, in which they fell to a rocky and far more unflappable ground below.

They lay there for a second, out of breath, bruised and battered. Taka half heartedly pushed against Tasuki, and with some effort, the bandit rolled off.

They were in a basement, of course, though it had taken them by surprise. The wooden trapdoor hung overhead, the light from the room above filtering down mockingly. Because it was too much of a reminder of how childishly they had behaved, Taka started to speak, to apologise and perhaps to explain. But, once more, Tasuki cut him off.

"_Subaru_?" he said, incredulously.

This took a moment to sink in, and then Taka too sat up, shocked.

Sure enough, there she was, lying in the corner of the small underground room, unconscious but breathing and yet unnaturally still for all the ruckus they had made.

* * *

Hanako had no way of knowing it, but she had nearly the same thought that, in a different universe, had crossed Hikari's mind (if not exactly at the same time or anything). She thought about baths. Li Fen was mostly very clean - other than her face of course (which Hanako tackled with a concoction of detergent, anti-septic liquid and soap) - but perhaps people did not bathe as much in the ancient world as they did now.

She then thought about Hikari and whether she'd had the chance to bathe. Heroes of grand epic tales rarely did, after all - or at least no author ever really mentioned anything about it. For the first time, it occurred to Hanako, that great heroes of grand epics were probably a very smelly breed of people. Ew.

"So," said Hanako, decisively, after having determinedly scrubbed Li Fen's face so thoroughly that the pink of her skin was no longer a consequence of the short woman's reticence. "Why were you afraid of Yui-sa- I mean, the Seiryuu-no-Miko?"

Li Fen emerged from behind the towel, looking ridiculously laundered. Before she could answer, Hanako put a dollop of face-cream on her nose and instructed her to massage it in. They had a brief but utterly ineffectual conversation about how lovely the cream smelt and how nice it felt on Li Fen's skin. The woman was still rubbing her nose with a bweildered but fascinated sort of look on her face, as she answered.

"I am not afraid of her. But I assumed she would not approve of me, for I come from Kounan. Kutou, the country that she protected, and Kounan were enemies, you see. And..." Li Fen hesitated, looking at Hanako anxiously. "I tell you this because I trust you," she said, with delightful simplicity. "My brother-in-law was a Suzaku Seishi. Shichi Seishi Nuriko. He died while fighting against the Seiryuu Seishi, you see, and- you look perplexed."

"The Suzaku seishi and the Seiryuu-no-Miko were enemies? But- Miaka-san and Yui-san are friends!"

"Miaka-sama, the Suzaku-no-Miko?" asked Li Fen, in awe.

"And ... Nuriko- that's Reishun's old-"

"...do you mean Reishun, the girl with her young friend?"

Hanako stopped, staring at Li Fen in pure shock. "Young friend? Hikari?"

"You know her?"

"Skinny legs, bit of a tummy, always whining?"

"You _know_ her!"

They stared at each other, quite unsure of what to do. There were Coincidences, and this was... really, this was probably not so much a Coincidence as much as it was the book going berserk and putting creating awkward situations for people who didn't know how to handle things. But it was certainly quite strange. So strange, in fact, that Hanako, who usually had quite a bit to say and didn't flinch at talking to strangers from a different world who thought washing their faces with toilet water was appropriate, had nothing to say.

Li Fen recovered much quicker. "Of course, you must know her - she was wearing similar clothes, after all, although hers were so much shorter. They came into the shop, a little late in the evening I must admit, but they wanted new clothes for the young girl, in exchange for the exotic material she was wearing."

Hanako's face altered. It had to be a messed up world that considered her school uniform to be "exotic".

''I... is that what happened?" asked Li Fen, earnestly, putting it together a lot quicker, probably on account of having known of incredible occurences and stories of magic and wondrous things all her life. "Did her clothes become a medium to call me here?"

"To send Miaka-san to your world," said Hanako, after a moment. "Oh god. This ... can't be good, can it?"

"The Suzaku-no-Miko in our world? I ... believe that is something to be pleased about, young Hanako-sama. The country has been suffering for a while now, and surely she must know how to change things."

But Miaka did not know. Hanako didn't quite know how to explain this to the woman without making things worse than they already were. Perhaps Miaka could do something, if she was the priestess of the beast-god of the south, but she hadn't known very much to begin with, and all evidence pointed towards that whatever they had faced before, this situation was different. She looked so troubled that Li Fen blinked and reached to take her arm, with a soft, recently creamed hand that was warm and comforting.

"Don't worry," she said, quietly, and smiled at Hanako. "You look terribly worried. I'm sure something will happen and things will get better."

And though these words could as easily have been seen as empty and unhelpful, because they came from a woman who had braved completely unknown territory, on the other side of a bathroom door, Hanako nodded. "Sure," she said, nodding with grim determination she didn't quite feel.

* * *

Tasuki stood in the back verandah of the doujo, drinking out of a flask and rubbing his elbow absently.

At some point, probably during their subtle transition from one room to another, he had whacked it against something hard, along the lines of a wall, and now it was smarting. So was his left eye, right cheek and jaw, along with numerous points about his person. It didn't bother him, other than that it was a reminder of how much of an ass he had been. Even that was not really surprising or particularly alarming. Punching someone had always made him feel better and there was, frankly, nothing like a physical brawl to settle things with a friend.

What he couldn't shake off was the feeling that if he had just... well, thrown something at the floor, stomped around instead of walking, then he might have found Subaru earlier. He _had_ looked very thoroughly, of course, and the hot-headed, nearly arrogant manner in which he had told Taka he'd hadn't missed anything wasn't based on something he'd pulled out of his rear end. He had looked not just here but also in Byakko's ruined temple and through the forest around the doujo. Of course, he had not found her.

It killed him that he had stood in that very room and stared at the papers in a disarray, taken it in without registering it, and left. It was very rare that he allowed himself to take the downward spiral to a personal hell of what-could-have-been, but this was one of those times.

_Suzaku._ Tasuki really, _really_ hated Sairou. Nothing good ever happened in Sairou, which was of course to be expected when the land was as particularly stupid and unyielding. He didn't like the vast open spaces or the confused weather - give him constant heat or constant cold, but this fluctuation was aggravating. And he didn't like the dust, because it made him feel like the land was barren and dying. Of course, his experiences of Sairou had taught him this, but he was a man who took his experiences very seriously.

Which was why he was standing around and letting Taka take on the highly unpleasant responsibility of telling Subaru of what had happened. He himself had taken it upon himself to drink some of Sairou's infamous sake and felt mildly numbed to the events of the last couple of days.

As he perceived movement behind him, he shifted, just slightly. "How is she?" he asked.

"She's resting," said Taka, sounding tired as he came to stand beside Tasuki. He looked no better than Tasuki was sure he himself looked, bruised, punched and thoroughly beaten. He also looked less like a guilty mongoose, thereby proving that hitting each other sometimes just took the edge off. "She took it... better than I thought she would. I don't think she was surprised."

Tasuki nodded, unsurprised by this. The Seishi knew when one of their own had died.

"She says she doesn't remember what happened - she remembers sending us off and walking back to the house, but nothing before or after that."

"So... someone must have been in here," followed Tasuki, voicing the unnecessary inference. Taka didn't seem to mind – they did need to straighten out what had happened and listing out the sequence of things seemed to make it less confusing.

"Trapdoor didn't lock itself. What's disturbing is that she's missing memories, and it doesn't appear that she was hit on the head, or anywhere actually. I think - I think maybe whoever it was took her letters."

"To Houki-sama?"

Taka nodded. "But I'm not sure," he added, as a disclaimer they did not need.

Tasuki looked away, shaking his head. They stood in silence for a while, almost companiable considering what had happened. A while later, Tasuki passed Taka the flask, before taking it back, substantially lighter.

Though they did not speak, Tasuki could feel his eyes on him as he turned away to look at the ruins of the Byakko temple in the distance steadily. Taka was going to offer comfort, he could almost sense it, and because he wasn't quite inclined to be comforted, because he wasn't the one who'd lost his old teacher and father figure, because he was the rough bandit, damn it, he exploded instead.

"It just- it pisses me off, Taka! That bastard - he's- they've not followed it up with an attack or anything. It's as if he doesn't care, or he isn't bothered - he's just playing with us. Just $&$*( playing!"

"I know."

"And Chichiri is still in there and we can't %*^*#( get to him! I mean - what the hell do we do!"

Taka put a hand on his shoulder, and Tasuki growled, but in a disgruntled and more sorrowful manner than angrily. "You couldn't have known, Tasuki," he said, clearly.

"What, are you a %*%*%*( mind-reader now?" Tasuki glowered.

"Well," said Taka, taking the flask of sake from him again and taking a swig, "subtlety isn't your middle name."

A minute passed in which Taka wasn't sure if Tasuki was about to deck him one again. But the flame haired bandit only rolled his eyes and snorted.

Somehow, it was as simple as that. Nothing had changed. They were still in a pit of a situation and they didn't know what they were going to do about it. One of the last Byakko seishi, one of the last great warriors of the universe, was dead and gone – and though they both knew of reincarnation, they knew also that the people they had known and loved were truly gone once they died, and if their souls wandered back, their bodies, their hearts and minds and experiences, would make them different. So they had certainly lost someone. Their friend was still missing. And, of course, they were nowhere near knowing what was going on.

But they knew, through silent communication and what Tasuki would have proudly called manly understanding (and Nuriko might have called intricate moronic comprehension), composed of sake and hitting each other, that they were in it together.

* * *

The bark of wood that had been left in the bag had characters carved into it. They read: _'Forest on the other side of the river.'_ And, as Reishun squinted at it, she realised that scrawled along the lower portions of it was a postscript.

"'_And shut up_ – _you're very loud'_. Well, that's ... not very polite," she finished, giving Hikari the same utterly bewildered look she had several hours back when they had discovered that the bag was missing.

"It sounds... I- the other side of the river?" But even though Hikari was very skeptical, she did lower her voice. It hadn't occured to her that they were audible to anyone but themselves, and now that she thought, it was sort of silly. They were out in the open, after all, even if it was raining heavily still - and they were both aware that they were being followed. It was just very weird to be chastised by a piece of wood. "How do we get to the other side of the river?"

"I don't know."

"Does this mean we're _not_ being followed?"

But even Reishun, who was usually more prepared to believe that the universe was out to help her, looked as though she felt that sounded over optimistic. She shook her head and bit her lip, feeling uneasy as she had the night that Reishun and her had been attacked in the little market village, a similar ... well, presence, or possibly just a very similar sense of anticipation that something was about to go wrong. She didn't quite know how to express this without sounding like an idiot, so she sat there with Reishun in the pouring rain and frowned intensely. This did neither of them any good.

"Nyan Nyan?" Reishun asked, quietly, and the orb peeked out tentatively.

"Can't sense, Nuriko-chan," she said, woefully. "Something wrong, but Nyan Nyan not know what. Nyan Nyan cannot do anything!"

"You can't even tell if it's good or bad?"

The orb seemed to glower at Hikari as if she'd missed the point, though, since it was an orb, Hikari found it very easy to ignore that entirely. Nyan Nyan and her had gone back to the no-talking status-quo that suited them both quite well (for the time being, at any rate) once she had discovered that a night's sleep and some fruit had not magically made her more capable of climbing rocks without slipping off them at an alarming rate that baffled her entirely - and made her curse like a sailor on leave (or a thirteen-year-old trying to be a sailor on leave, anyway). (2)

Really, Hikari had never been an accident prone child. She had stubby legs, certainly, and she had never liked gym or sports, but she had always considered herself perfectly capable of manuevering herself around spaces without falling off. Seemingly, this didn't apply to slippery rocks in the rain. It wasn't comforting to have learned this about herself.

"What do we do?" she asked, finally, looking at Reishun in a vexed sort of manner. Either this was a trap or, well, it wasn't, and in either case, it was pretty troubling. But Reishun had an odd glimmer of hope in her eyes that made Hikari blinked, and then smack her forehead. "It's not _him_, is it?"

"I don't- I don't know," said Reishun, having the courtesy to look somewhat sheepish. It was far-fetched, and she knew it, and Hikari knew that she knew it, but it didn't stop her from looking around awkwardly and then shrugging with an oddly hopeful look on her face. "Maybe?"

"If it is," said Hikari, rolling her eyes, "and I really don't think it is, he's really not endearing himself to me." Then, she sighed. "Stop looking so optimistic, Reishun. We're probably about to die in a really painful and stupid way, because by Murphy's law, what we choose will be the opposite of what we SHOULD have chosen and even if we choose right, it won't take more than a tiny push to have us tumble to a watery end!"

"You know," said Reishun, conversationally, picking her up again and tossing her up with the bag as she squeaked in mild alarm, "you remind me of someone. Someone... old and gnarled and really grouchy and weird."

"And you remind me of Hanako - my stupid, over-optimistic thirteen-year-old-who-falls-in-love-every-third-day friend from school," said Hikari, sounding even more grumpy now because, as it turned out, there was no way to put off making the decision about whether they wanted to heed the advice of the strange bark-of-wood note-writer or not. Up ahead, not particularly far was a bridge - or something like a bridge, anyway, which looked like it had seen better days and witnessed many floods of the cranky river Shoryuu.

Reishun joined her and sighed. "Damn it," she muttered.

Thunder rumbled ominously over their heads, as they stood there for a minute, trying to look exasperated when they were both quite deeply bothered. To cross the bridge or not to cross the bridge... really, they may well have crossed it anyway, even if the stupid note hadn't said to cross over. But it was no longer a simple question of taking the easiest looking path - though both Reishun and Hikari felt that the forest cover on the opposite side was a lot more appealing - so much as it was on trusting their instincts.

And, though she had never really felt inclined to believe in abstract things like 'instincts', Hikari felt weirdly blinded, as though something was blotting those instincts out entirely. If being unconscious in the palace at Eiyou had created a sense of being really awake, if not actually awakened, this was almost exactly the opposite, so that it was now a question of how much she wanted to have faith in people.

"Let's not cross it," she said, the moment this occurred to her.

"No, let's cross it." Reishun shook her head.

"Maybe it's just so whoever our little is can shoot us from the trees."

"Or maybe someone _is_ really trying to help us-"

"Reishun, it's _not him_!"

"I didn't _say_ it was! I just think - well, look, there is a forest on the other side. It's more protective than _this_, isn't it? Maybe they want us to go in there so they can help us better?"

Hikari looked highly skeptical, more so because she didn't think this bout of logic came from any sincere train of thought so much as it did from a stupid belief that Shu Eian was protecting them. Which he couldn't be. He was supposed to be in Kutou, so why would he come all the way back here to protect them?

On the other hand, a small voice of unwanted hope in her head reminded her, she was the Shinzaho, right?

Looking really, really annoyed, Hikari shrugged. "If we get attacked-"

"We could be attacked here too," Reishun pointed out. "In fact, all they need to do to you here is to give you a little push and you'll go tumbling in."

Hikari grimaced at river below, flowing powerfully and rising ominously. If either of them fell in, it would be a very, very bad thing. Even if Reishun was strong enough to yank her out, she would have to be quick enough to get to her before the racing river carried her away. And if Reishun fell in, Hikari was very sure that she herself would be completely useless.

The bridge in itself did not help their decision to cross it. Hikari had imagined creepy decrepit bridges across horrible rivers, but it had never quite carried the same weight as this one did. Planks were missing, so, conveniently, you could see the raging river through the substantial gaps. The ropes along either sides seemed shaky and not particularly steady or tightly tied.

They spent another minute looking at it, after which Reishun tried to explain, not sounding very convinced herself, that there was no reason for it to collapse, no matter how bedraggled and weak it looked, just when _they_ were walking across it. Hikari did not speak. In her opinion, there was every reason for it to collapse at the least opportune moment.

But the exhaustion from the day and the clear knowledge that the second they stepped on that bridge, something Very Bad would happen, made her far less inclined to argue and more inclined to get it over with. They stepped onto the bridge after a brief argument with a simplified end (Reishun took Hikari by the scruff of the neck and pushed her forward) about who was going to go first.

The wood beneath Hikari's feet creaked in an aggrieved manner, her hands forming tight fists around the rope, though this didn't really give her any support. She muttered something under her breath, though whether it was a very quiet utterance to the heavens or something crude was lost to the noise. The river wasn't roaring, exactly, it was just rumbling, constantly, like a very large hungry man. Or possibly a very large man who had eaten too much and was now not feeling too well.

"Take your time," said Reishun, from behind her, sounding irritable. "You know how _thrilling_ it is to be standing at an open bridge with the possibility of an attack." (3)

Hikari turned to give her a dirty look, but the fact that there was a man about to bring his sword down on Reishun's neck turned that into a yell of alarm.

Before either of them could do anything, the man himself uttered a strange, guttural sort of gasping yelp. It sounded much like "gurk!" but there was no way of telling - nor a possibility of asking him to repeat himself as he fell over backwards, an arrow sticking out of his chest.

It would have been troubling - not because it was terrible that a man trying to kill one of them was dead, but because Reishun had just been proved correct and Hikari knew she would never hear the end of it. But Hikari had no time to dwell on this, or even on the strangeness of dwelling on Reishun's potential snarkiness rather than the fact that she'd just seen a man die only for the second time in her life (and certainly, her grandfather had not died with an arrow sticking out his chest). As the man fell, he cleared her vision of what lay behind them and they were clearly able to see the several other men standing behind him, poised with their swords out to attack them.

"Um," said Hikari, taking a step back, as Reishun edged to the side in order to block Hikari from their view - as though, on a bridge like this, this would matter. She didn't need the older woman's shouted instruction to turn and run.

Arrows shot over their heads, though neither of them was particularly concerned with where they came from. Hikari had managed to count about five men, and she heard two thuds. It meant nothing, of course. It was pouring, and there could have been still more men behind the front row of soldiers. All she thought about - all she could think about - was running.

She fell, of course – because she had she was not used to her shoes, and because the bridge was in a state of disrepair and wobbled as altogether too many people hurtled across it, and because she was essentially having a really bad day. Something struck the small of her back and with a yell of a sort, Reishun fell right over her.

Hikari turned, just as a man bore down on her. She raised her hands in a sort of cross against the attack instinctively and it was a good thing that she did so, because as the arrow shot out from the other side of the bridge somewhere and struck the man in the chest, he fell and his sword fell on her crossed forearms instead of on her head, slashing her flesh so neatly down to the bone that she hardly felt it until hot blood poured down and she realised she had been cut.

The man fell to the side, over the rope that was meant to assist passers, plummeting to the raging Shoryuu river. Another arrow whizzed past Hikari's head, striking the next assailant. Something hot splashed over her face and she realised quite blankly that it was his blood. Another struck the next man, and there was more blood. And another, and still more blood.

It was surreal because it was almost neat and tidy. There was certainly no drama about it, no insane rush of the kind that had claimed them on the day that they'd escaped the commander, because these were not evil people. They weren't anything special - just people, really, of flesh and blood and a stench of sweat she was almost ashamed to acknowledge that meant that they'd been chasing them quite literally for as long as they'd been running. They were trapped on the bridge, unable to not try to kill her - and they kept coming, as their unseen ally shot them, one after another.

Hikari sat there, useless, stupid and stupidly shocked, until one of the men - the sixth? The eighth? - fell towards her. Alarmed, she jerked back, a moment too late. He fell on her legs, his face slamming into her already bruised knee. It was nearly hilarious that she registered this and not the blood streaming down her forearms.

She shrieked - she must have, because her mouth opened and she had the sense that she was making a sound, but she could really not hear anything other than the raging of the river, the howling that now seemed like a hungry roar, a kind of din over her senses. And though she distantly realized that she was in shock of some kind, for the moment it felt as though it was nothing but the river, raging because nothing could truly satisfy its craving for vengeance.

Two strong hands grabbed her upper arms and yanked her away from the dead body, throwing her bodily onto the earthy higher ground the bridge led to, just next to the river.

This was Reishun, Hikari realised, as the older woman turned to look at her. Hikari looked back, in what was supposed to be sort of a reassuring look, because she was okay, really. But for some reason, Reishun's eyes widened with horror and she rushed to her.

"Are you okay?" she demanded, grabbing her and shaking her. "Where is it, damn it? Then, she stopped - for which Hikari was grateful - and began to search her clothes in a horrified maternal sort of way.

Hikari blinked, and then her eyes widened. "_Reishun_!"

It was instinct that she grabbed Reishun wildly, clutching at her so roughly and protectively that the woman sort of squawked. Instinctive, but totally unnecessary, for a different shadow dropped down behind the man looming over them.

Except that for a moment, Hikari saw three shadows – two smaller ones and one relatively larger one, all of which merged to form an incomprehensible shape. Maybe it was the recognisable shape, or possibly it was a glow of … of friendly light, in a way, from the shadow, but Hikari knew, without knowing how she knew, that this was a Friend.

The shape then twisted, turning back into a single person, and swung a hand at the man. It twisted again, this time in a way that Hikari would later equate with Bruce Lee movies, so its leg slammed against the larger shadow's head. The man fell over, but Hikari only stared at the person who had rescued them, trying to make out what the hell she was looking at. Only distantly did she register that Reishun had disentangled herself from her clutch, and was staring as well.

It wasn't a very tall person, or a very big person, but it was a very armed person. There was a half-full quiver of arrows sticking out from behind this person, a scabbard dangled from under the black belt, a non-ornate but very tough looking sword hilt sticking out of it and a dagger in his hand.

Hikari realised, as she recognised the liquid dripping from its end as the same running down her arms and all over her face now, that he hadn't swung a hand at the man so much as slashed his throat.

Rather incomprehensibly, the person leaned down and hissed, urgently, "Stop it! Don't do that! _That's how he found you!"_

"...wha-"

But Hikari didn't have a chance to finish or understand, and stop doing whatever she was somehow doing, or even register that his voice was rather feminine for a boy, for the person let out a growl of frustration (and that was sort of masculine) and twisted away, throwing the dagger in the general direction of the bridge.

Then, he twisted around and punched Hikari hard in the face, and everything went black.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I hope that wasn't too much to take in one chapter. I know there are a lot of strange and unanswered questions. Like... What the heck happened to Subaru? Where has her 'old friend' gone? Clearly, he wasn't all that friendly ... hmmmm. Why was Hikari knocked out? Is Reishun going to dismember this person who is evidently their ally? What the hell does the title of this chapter have to do with what happens in it? (Answer: nothing. The title of this story should indicate that I have no talent whatsoever when it comes to naming things.)

A HUUUUUUUUUUGE thank you to _Flashyfirebird _and _MercuryMoon_ for their reviews - it always helps! Parts of this story are supposed to be confusing, but I hope it isn't becoming too weird for people to keep reading. That would be unfortunate. This story actually sometimes confuses _me_ so it would be shocking if there weren't like... enormous loopholes, so please keep pointing them out. I don't intend to fix stuff immediately, this is true - because I'm dying to finish this. But eventually, when there is an edit, then I will fix it and it's good to have stuff to keep in mind.

Aaaaaand... random notes:

1) Dedicated to a certain someone who has very specific fears about this.

2) Gilmore Girls reference #2. Dedicated to a different someone, because she reminded me of the true awesomeness of Lorelei Gilmore. Amen.

3) Yes, this is a ... almost sort of reference to a line in The Devil Wears Prada. Accidental! And yes, I hereby confess to having watched it often enough for its lines to ahve sneaked into my sub-conscious. Not making any money off it, apologies for random tackiness. And ... yay? o.O

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

**THANKS FOR READING!**


	20. 19 Enemy of the Enemy

**Chapter Nineteen **

**Enemy of the Enemy**

* * *

_"The greatest harm can result from the best intentions."_

~ Terry Goodkind (from The Sword of Truth series) ~

* * *

It was over in a matter of moments.

Their unorthodox 'rescuer' - who had yet to explain why he'd punched Hikari out - had dealt with the soldiers, moving with a kind of ruthless precision that made it seem as though the entire battle was some kind of dance he'd orchestrated in his head. But then it helped that the bridge was too narrow for the soldiers to attack in any formation other than a neat line. He picked them off, one by one, and would have finished them all off if Reishun had not chosen to pick up a large rock and throw it at the bridge to end it in a simpler, less bloody manner.

She stood there, in the din of the downpour and roaring river. She found that she was shaking, though whether it was from the cold rain still pouring down on them or the shock of the battle she hadn't fought, she couldn't have said. As she watched, the boy knelt walked to the soldiers who had not fallen into the river to take back his arrows, pulling them out of the dead soldiers without flinching. On some level, she knew it was necessary - but it still left her unsettled.

As he turned to look at her, she crossed her arms across her chest, glaring at him. She could not make out how old he was, for his face was concealed by his scarf. If his clothes and the dark of his eyes were any indication, then he was certainly not from Kounan. As she glared at him, he stared back, a coldly furious look in his eyes. And what he said threw her off.

"That was stupid," he stated, so calmly that he may well have been talking about the river.

Reishun raised both eyebrows, thrown. "_Excuse_ me?"

"I said," he said, still calmly, pushing her to annoyance, "that was stupid. Imprudent and classless. I could have used that dagger and now it's gone. Because of you."

He turned firmly away from her to trudge over to Hikari. But Reishun put herself just as firmly between the unconscious girl and this rude, abrasive and violent boy. "You're not coming near her," she said, calmly enough, though she was still shaking.

He stared her down, his eyes hard, and for a moment she thought he'd hit her. But instead, he let out a kind of frustrated growl, wordless and incoherent and somewhat savage to Reishun's more cultured ears. "Get out of my way!" he said, almost losing it. Somewhere in the distance thunder crackled, and the dark eyes behind the scarf became incredulous and annoyed. "For god's sake - I've been following you for two whole days, ever since your excessively unplanned arrival at that village-"

Reishun frowned, suddenly suspicious. "Did you steal my bag?"

Thunder rolled as the person before her growled again. "And how easy it was! I didn't do that so I could _save_ you and then kill her!"

"You _punched _her!"

"Yes, I did," he snapped, and although nothing changed about the tone of his voice or his stance, something in his eyes seemed to snap. Reishun thought it was annoying and ridiculously dramatic that the rain only became heavier, thunder rumbling overhead like some kind of ominous sign. "Because she doesn't know how to control her chi."

"She wh-"

He took a step towards her, coldly. She had to fight to stay in place, which was ridiculous - he was not taller than her, for one, and she could have tossed him across the river with her left hand, for two. But though she couldn't see the rest of his face, something about the way he was glaring at her held her in place. His voice grew calmer as he spoke, with a kind of deliberation that she would later associate with the cold precision of the way he fought. But it was his words that chilled her now.

"How do you think they found you? How do you think I found you, for that matter? You're very loud - not just your voices, but your auras. You'd think you're out on a pleasure trip or something - _stop it_," he added, glaring furiously at Reishun's chest.

"Um," said Reishun, eyeing him, taken aback.

It was almost anticlimatic to realise, a second later, that he was looking at Nyan Nyan.

"Stop doing that," he said, with calm fury, and Nyan Nyan, who had been glowing slightly, almost optimistically, stopped and receded.

Reishun wanted to slam her head into a tree, but this would do no one any good, least of all the tree, but at least Nyan Nyan's lack of reaction proved that this wasn't an enemy, even if he was ... strange. Strange and cold and oddly unreachable. A rescuer should have been slightly warm, but this person seemed completely shut off, irate about having to save them, and somehow accusatory. There was an intensity in his eyes that his voice didn't quite communicate, and Reishun, though she did not move, found herself unsettled.

"They're following your life-energies," he said. "That ... person that you carry - who brought you here, created quite a ruckus. And the two of you make it so easy to find you, so loud and so easily moved into displaying your chi."

Reishun stared at him in dismay. It was so simple that it was almost stupid that they'd not thought of it before. If Nyan Nyan could look for the their enemy's life-energies, then so could they. God, why hadn't they thought of it?

"You probably don't even realise what that means," he continued, laying out the truth in an inescapable manner. His eyes bore into her, making her feel unbelievably vulnerable and exposed. There was no avoiding what he said - he was making sure of it, while, of course, belittling her attempts to keep Hikari from harm. She could say nothing, which was an unsettling first for her. "It means that they followed you to the village. They questioned the people in the village, and when they found that they would not provide them with helpful information, because they were too noble for it - what do you think they did?"

The weight of his words fell on Reishun's shoulders so heavily that she hardly noticed him stepping around her and kneeling beside Hikari. She could think of nothing but the sudden dreadful, cold _knowledge_ that they'd left the reluctantly generous Oda and his grandmother to a terrible fate. Why hadn't they even considered this before?

The rain cascaded down, coming in near waves now and creating terrible noise that Reishun couldn't run from, just as she couldn't escape the cold accusation the boy had laid on her. It wasn't their doing, she wanted to tell him. How could they have known? What could they do now?

But it was - it was and she could not deny that. They may not have known, but then, weren't they supposed to? She bit her lip, taking a deep breath and turning around to find him rolling back Hikari's blood-soaked sleeves. Although she was inclined to freeze in her spot or crawl into a corner and cry, out of the sheer horror of their burden, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't cry in front of this person, because he was right, whether it was difficult to swallow or not. The mark over her heart meant that she was responsible for the presently unconscious girl, more than she was for anything else. That much, at least, she could do.

Swallowing down her horror, she joined the lad, rolling back the other sleeve and trying not to cringe at the sight of Hikari's wound. It could have been worse - Hikari was only very fortunate that the blow hadn't been deliberate. But she was losing a ridiculous amount of blood. "What do-" But he was ahead of her. The sound of cloth ripping made Reishun look up.

Then, despite herself, she stared, forgetting for a second that she had blood on her hands and Hikari might well die from losing too much blood. It was obvious and ridiculous because, despite the more feminine voice and the fluidity to the movements that Reishun had observed not too long back, she hadn't realised it.

"You're a girl," she observed, and in the silence that followed, felt even more idiotic and trivial.

The boy who was not a boy handed her one half of her scarf and proceeded to ignore her as she worked on binding the cut on one of Hikari's arms. Still feeling stupidly startled, Reishun got to work as well, trying not to look at the long hair and the rather obviously feminine features of the other girl.

Without the scarf disguising her face and gender, she seemed older - though not much older than Reishun herself, most likely. There were faint lines of scars on her face, from wounds that seemed both recent and old, and a severity in her eyes that matched her features better than Reishun had somehow imagined they would. She was probably from the western lands, Reishun discerned, the colour of her skin somewhat darker and the texture somehow more weathered, as though used to having the sun beat down on it. Though her body did not seem obviously womanly, Reishun couldn't remember now why she'd thought she was a boy. There was something almost obviously feminine about her - now that she knew she was female, of course.

It was only very slightly gratifying to note that as graceful as she had been before, her movements now seemed jagged - as though binding up wounds posed a more difficult task than causing said wounds. She did a fair job, though Reishun finished quicker and was neater in general, and spent the extra minute or two looking at the girl. She only realised this when she found her looking back, and then she coloured, alarmed by her own awkwardness.

"That will do for the time being," the girl said, ignoring this display. It was evident that she wasn't in the habit of wasting words. "It won't stop the bleeding, but we can't stay here. I know a place a little way off where we can ask for help." She got to her feet. "You can carry her," she stated, flatly. Without waiting for a reply, turned to walk into the forest, leaving Reishun to pick Hikari up gently and follow.

* * *

It was the longest and quietest walk Reishun had ever been on, a silent determined kind of trudging through the forest. Although they took a number of turns and strayed from the path enough to confuse her somewhat, she could still hear the river not too far away, an undercurrent of a roar that followed them constantly through the forest, as the rain still fell. It should have sounded peaceful, really, Reishun had never been one to be afraid of the rain and thunder. When it rained in the summers, she always slept with the windows open because the steady litany of it comforted it and made her feel peaceful. However, the combination of the rising Shoryuu and the rain made the sounds seem violent, unfriendly and perhaps even angry. But then again, that could merely have been her, feeling as though she was being punished.

In some ways, she was glad that they walked without speaking, even though this meant that she knew neither the girl's name nor where they were going. She was in shock, by the blood on Hikari's arms, by the very violent manner in which the girl had killed those soldiers and most of all the cold delivery of the news, about Oda and his grandmother. She tried to tell herself that it was irrational to feel this way. Hadn't she_ known_ that this was serious business? She wasn't a kid, for heaven's sake, and even if she had been naive about the dangers of the road, the pain that still lingered in the core of her bones from what the commander had done to her had alerted her to the fact that this was not an amusing trip.

But _this_... she couldn't have imagined this. Not so much the wounds or the violence, but the helplessness of knowing that something they had done, something they had so unthinkingly derived comfort from, had had such terrible consequences. She wanted to tell herself that it was irrational to look back; they couldn't do anything about it. But she couldn't just shake it off and look forward as she did normally. She found that, for once, she simply didn't have the strength for it. It was simply easier to not speak, to trust Nyan Nyan's warmth against her chest if not the girl who had rescued them, and to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

They were climbing a hill, a much easier and faster climb than the rocks, even with Hikari tied to her back with her cloak, and they made steady progress. Reishun did not know how long they walked, only that they walked without stopping, into the depths of the forest, where the trees themselves were so thick that they blotted out the meager light of the rainy day. No matter how far they went, the dark rain clouds followed them, and Reishun could hear the grim litany of the angry Shoryuu. The girl did not pause either. She moved quickly and so silently that sometimes Reishun had to stop to check where she'd gone. But she always found her waiting at the next landing, looking mildly impatient and possibly even a little bored. She took off again the moment Reishun had reached where she was.

They climbed in this silence, forming almost a rhythm that Reishun lost herself to, and had been walking for what felt like hours (but was probably not very long) when Reishun began to notice certain changes in the forest. They were obvious differences in the terrain, the smell of the earth changing just very slightly. The hill they were climbing also became a lot steeper, so much that Reishun had to stop to check the knots on the cloak that secured Hikari to her back out of fear that the girl would fall off.

It only occured to her when she was halfway up the steeper climb that this was not all naturally done. That which had looked initially like adventitious roots hanging from the trees weren't roots - they were ropes, made from some kind of strong material Reishun had never seen, which looked like roots but was in fact a thousand lean strings all knotted together tightly. She tugged at one of these ropes, testing it, and found it was strong enough to support their weight. A little higher along the same rope, she found, were markings, tiny slashes in red that fell in a deliberate pattern across the ropes. It was a slow transition, and really, one wouldn't have imagined that the landscape around them was no longer perfectly natural; but this was, Reishun realised with some detachment, the help that the girl had spoken of.

As she reached the top of the climb, she found not one but two figures waiting for her - the girl, who turned the moment Reishun spotted her and stalked off, and a tall man, who seemed altogether friendlier and gave Reishun a hand. He pulled her along a little too easily for her liking, but let go immediately and so bowed deeply that she could see the top of his hat, lined with fur.

He wore clothing that seemed put together rather specifically, quite unlike a peasant or commoner, his lower clothing more like a woman's than a man's. He wore an additional jacket and a belt made of animal hide, from which hung numerous things that Reishun was too tired to focus on, though, as she bowed as well, she caught sight of the curved nail of some kind of large animal.

"Welcome," he said, as she straightened. "You can carry your charge a little longer, I hope. We shall follow Wu Ming."

"...that's her name?" asked Reishun, raising an eyebrow despite herself.

He smiled, but only very slighly. Although he wasn't very old (though he was probably older than her father), there were anxious lines aout his face that made the expression seem strained. "That's what she calls herself." (1)

Feeling mildly, and not a little derisively, amused at this chosen designation (talk about dramatic), Reishun followed him as he led her down a narrow path all squelchy with mud puddles through the trees. Most of the trees had tied around them the same root-like ropes. With a sort of jolt, she realised, while looking at the trees, that there were people in them, guards by the quivers of arrows strapped to their back. She must be, she thought, even more detachedly, quite tired to not have seen them. The exhaustion in her bones seemed oddly distant. In some ways, she was still braced for an attack. But these men took no notice of her and she soon turned away. Nyan Nyan remained warm against her chest, assurance that they were safe.

They climbed only a little more until they were quite suddenly at the edge of a small valley, a small enclosure formed by the hills, at the bottom of which was a river much smaller than the Shoryuu. It had her staring nonetheless, for it was markedly different from anything she had ever seen.

The thick plummage of the forest had been stripped away in places, to make paths, but for the most of it, the landscape seemed untampered with. There were caves, natural dwellings on either side of the river, clearly occupied by people who sat outside them. Bridges connected the two sides, narrow but far more intact than the one she had just destroyed. There were not very many people - far fewer than what she imagined merited so many guards. But then, possibly they weren't guards at all, just members of a small tribe. Despite herself, she found that she was curious as she walked down, careful not to slip along the rocky narrow path in the rain, that led to the yawning entrance of a cave. She had lived in a very urban market town all her life, and her mother had always told her that tribesmen were more savage. But there was nothing savage about these people, nothing alarming. She wanted to ask more, but the man spoke before she could, leading her to a cave.

"We are the Hei Xiong Ren (2)," he said, with his strained expression, raising a hand as though to summon someone. Maybe it was the wrinkled on his young face that made him seem so straine, Reishun thought. "You are welcome to our humble dwelling, for as long as you need refuge."

As a couple of the women stepped up, he nodded towards the bundle on Reishun's back and they made to help Reishun with the knot she had tied so securely a little while back. "I will tend to her wounds," said the man, staring at her steadily. As Reishun hesitated, he stepped forward and placed a hand on hers. "Those wounds need tending."

"I'll sit with her," Reishun said, immediately.

"You are nearly falling over from exhaustion," he pointed out, as gently as he could.

Reishun shook her head. "I won't fall over - I will sit with her."

He studied her and then smiled again, in his odd manner. "She said you might do that," he said, nodding his head towards the other side of the river. Reishun realised there was a figure on one of the rocks on the other side, and knew it was the girl who called herself Nobody. "A curious thing, this bond between the warriors and the object of the beast-god. The bond between the warriors themselves too, at that," he added, looking in the direction to which the woman had stalked off. Then he turned, and, catching Reishun's look of alarm, shook his head. "No, you don't need to fear us. We are the enemy of your enemy, young warrior of Suzaku. Even though once we may have been enemies, times have changed now and we all stand on the same side. If you had anything to fear from me, the small friend you carry with you would have told you of it."

Reishun started to object again. It was not because she didn't want to trust this man. Never had she wanted to trust someone more - and she did, really, not fearing him in any manner - but because she wanted to stay with Hikari. A strange bond, as he called it, the need to make sure that the younger girl was alright. But he was right, even if that he knew of Nyan Nyan hiding within the folds of her clothing surprised her enough to make her frown.

He leaned forward instead, without smiling this time. "I am the Miao Jian, the Shenwu for the tribe," he said, in a tone that was no longer soothing - as though he sensed that mostly, Reishun did not want to be calmed at the moment. She couldn't be, really, even though this silent and slightly imaginary acknowledgement of it made it easier for her to back off.

"You may come later, if you like. For now, while I tend to her wounds, you must dry off and get warmer." He turned away, and Reishun followed his gaze to the small figure once more. Though the clouds had made it too dark for her to see, she knew that the girl's eyes followed her. "Who knows when this rain will stop."

Reishun had to blink her gaze away from the small figure to look at him, but he was already moving away, with a woman who carried Hikari, into the cave. She watched them go anxiously, her senses confused by the exhaustion and general frustration that was building into something worse. Someone laid a hand on Reishun's arm, drawing her away. She didn't quite pay attention and would later not remember who it had been that led her to the another cave, warm with a fire lit at it's mouth, or how she had been handed clothes that smelled fresh and clean, and a little like lemongrass. All she knew was the persistent sense of being watched by the warrior who had saved them, a gaze of accusation and discontent that she couldn't shake off.

"Nuriko-chan?" Nyan Nyan's tiny voice reached for her as she leaned against the wall of the cave and looked helplessly at the tiny slivers of light that came in through the entrance. The orb floated out, but Reishun didn't look at her.

It was stupid to feel this way, this dejected and this lost, as though she had somehow betrayed something basic to her. What would Nuriko have thought of her, she who could hardly protect Hikari without help, and who had so thoughtlessly doomed a kind man and his grandmother to their deaths? She, who had believed that she was so in control of her destiny, so much more in tune with the truth than Eian, who fought with himself constantly, was failing, and the enormity of this failure was begining to crash on her.

Nothing good could come of allowing the depression to take a hold of her. What she had to do was to accept what had happened and move on. How would she help Hikari if she couldn't get it together herself? Every sensible part of her berated her for breaking down, but her limbs ached - her heart ached. The sense of being completely lost and helpless clung to her like the smell of the wet forest did to her hair. It was stupid and unfair and even childish. But she could not fight anymore. Clutching to the change of clothes as though they were her lifeline, Reishun sat down against the wall of the cave, exhausted, lost and really much smaller than everything she had to deal with, and wept.

After a while while the Nyan Nyan orb came to rest against her shoulder, and stayed there, steady, until she was ready to move again.

* * *

Several hours later, she awoke to the sounds of a drum being beaten, somehow conglomerating with the steady rainfall to form a beat, like a comfortingly regular thumping of a heart. It took her a minute to realise where she was, inside the cave still. She also found, to her surprise, that she was quite warm. Someone, it appeared, had covered her with a blanket, and looking around the cave lit by the firelight from the outside, she found the culprit sitting in the corner, staring at her through large, anxious eyes.

"Nuriko-chan okay now?"

Reishun felt a small smile tug at the corner of her mouth. She nodded, not awake enough to speak just yet, and rubbed her eyes. It was not like waking in the mornings, because it probably was not morning - even though the darkness that the firelight seemed to be chasing away didn't necessarily mean anything on a day that had not seen the sun at all, grim rain clouds keeping the light away. But if it had been morning, she would have felt rested. Now, though warm and certainly feeling a lot better from when she'd turned up here, she felt awkward, sleepy and found that she was in a certain amount of pain, probably from all the climbing.

"Where is Hikari?" she asked, a yawn and a stretch later. "Is she okay?"

To her relief, Nyan Nyan smiled widely. "Kowaiineechan is okay! Kowaiineechan is doing a BAD thing!"

This did not quite add up, but Reishun gave up on trying to make sense of it before she even started. "But she's in one piece?" she asked, finally.

"Yes, Nuriko-chan!"

Reishun almost grinned at her excitement, though she wasn't quite feeling up to it, not quite yet. "Okay. Come on,"she said, picking up the orb, "we'll go find her."

Though it was after sunset, Reishun found as she walked out, the small valley of dwellings was more alive than it had been in the day, when they had arrived. The steady drums came from within one of the caves, most of which were lit by fires at their mouths, with small gatherings of people around them. Some were singing, some laughed - the small enclosure of a valley felt comfortingly vibrant, normal and tugged her cloak around the clothes she couldn't entirely remember changing into (in between, she imagined, crying like a small child) against the rain that still fell; the voices of the people rang out through the constant dismal downpour, somehow lightening the mood.

One of the women smiled at Reishun as she passed by and Reishun nodded, surprised that she was touched by the arbitrary friendliness. When she had closed her eyes, she had not believed herself worthy of any comfort. Had she not had a hand in causing the deaths of people who had helped her? The woman introduced herself as Huian, bowing low as she did so. Reishun returned the gesture and asked to be taken to the Shenwu's cave.

The fire before it was almost out, but there was a glow coming from within. She hesitated for only a second, moral lessons that she'd been brought up on making her reconsider. But the moment passed and, with Nyan Nyan in her hands, she walked in.

The glow came from several candles, all burned to different heights, placed at the end of the small, round cave. The cave that Reishun had slept in had been a lot more functional. There was a sleeping area and some jars in the back, and nothing else. This was very different, though there was a sleeping area certainly, covered in simple sheets. There were jars all over the room, the larger ones stacked in the back, and the smaller ones places next to the bed, by the candles and everywhere. There was even a small wooden table in the center of the room, on which were placed what looked like fragments of white bone.

The room itself was devoid of people, if not what you could call empty, and really, she should have left. But it was an interesting room. The walls were marked with etchings that were, as she realised after a few moments, the same as the markings on the elaborately crafted ropes that had assisted her in her climb a few hours back. Necklaces too hung from the walls, with bear claws at the end. What had he called the tribe? The Hei Xiong Ren - the people of the Black Bear.

Reishun stepped away from the claw-necklaces to look at the bones on the table more closely. They were etched on, markings of a strange writing made deeply on them, similar to the markings on the walls of the caves. She couldn't read them, but there was an understated aura around them, drawing her to them. Carefully, she picked one on, frowning as she looked at it.

"Jiagu (8)," said the Shenwu, from right behind her.

Reishun nearly drop the bone in her hand, turning swiflty to face the man guiltily. "Sorry," she said, her heart pounding.

"It is alright. Though I do beg you to be careful. It's not easy to come by these." He stepped to her, and taking the bone from her hand, placed it on the table. "The ancestor of all forms of writing. They say the first book was written on Jiagu. But then," he said, turning to look at her, "they say a lot of things."

Reishun swallowed, biting her lip. "I was looking for Hikari - I just came in to check."

"Your friend is alright."

"Ny- my ... other little friend said she was being... er, that she was being stupid?"

The Shenwu nodded, and his wrinkled seemed to crease as he smiled just a little. "The medicines can sometimes ... have an intoxicating effect. But she is, at least, in less pain than she would have been otherwise."

It took her a minute, but she realised what he was talking about. Then, she raised both eyebrows. "You mean she's drunk."

"Succinctly put," he agreed, and didn't comment as Reishun snorted. "But she is safe and her wounds will heal. I have left her with the my wife, and she is well looked after. And your ... rescuer watches over constantly." He looked at her, his dark eyes gleaming slightly in the gentle glow of the candles. "You have a question."

It was slightly unnerving to be read like that, though she supposed she was being fairly obvious. "No. Well," she said, "aren't you - I thought you were sort of the priest for the tribe. And you're...married, so-"

"We do not have the same beliefs about detachment from worldly ties, as monks do," he said, and smiled again, in that strained manner of his, as she looked slightly uncertain. "I do not live in seclusion. I live in association - without being a part of the world, how can I be a guide to the people around me? Without being a part of the world, I will not be able to be a guide in any manner, for my journey is of this earth. A Shenwu is not a monk - he or she is a gate, if you can understand that, the path between the worlds. It is my duty ensure that the balance between the heaven and the earth is not perturbed. So my ties with the other world are, though not dissimilar, not the same as ... say, your fellow Suzaku warrior."

Reishun stopped, looking at him with some alarm. If he'd had to harm her, she knew, he would have done so already, and the alarm was not out of the belief that she was in trouble. But it was alarming to have memories that she believed were secret, or at least sacred, thrown at her. But then again, it had not even been twenty years since the priestess of Suzaku had appeared to save the country. "You know him?" she asked, warily.

"I know of him. People may not speak of the legend of the warriors often, but it was not long ago enough for them to have forgotten. The land remembers." His eyes remained steadily on her, and there was a kindness in them that made her more uncomfortable than anything else. "Until the land remembers, there is still hope." As Reishun remained silent, he tilted his head. "You have doubts."

It was almost like being caught stealing sweets, and she felt guilty immediately. "I... no, I- I cannot doubt when I do not know," she said, which was not really an answer. A moment later, she frowned, awkwardly. "I don't know what I mean," she confessed.

But he shook his head. "But you do," he said, softly, watching her consistently.

Because this made her even more awkward, she pressed on. "What did you mean before? When you said that we were once enemies?"

"The Hei Xiong Ren supported Kutou's army in the war. We agreed to fight for them, and they agreed not to flood our village when they were diverting the waters of the Shoryuu. You find it alarming that you must now seek refuge in the homes of people who have found your countrymen," he said, and then, as she looked mildly annoyed, shook his head. "As I said, Seishi, you are the enemy of our greatest enemy. We have long stood against the nine-headed beast, who would undo all that has been done to maintain the relationship between the gods and the people. If he succeeds in his quest, then we shall all be in grave danger, and so petty political ties are of no consequence." He inclined his head again. "You have another question," he prompted.

She blinked. "Erm, yes. Who is nine-headed beast?"

"Ah - well, there are many stories, (4)" said the Shenwu, sitting down, and indicating to Reishun that she should sit as well. After a moment's thought, she did. "But we believe differently. Wel, the Hei Xiong Ren come from the north, from coldest and most barren reaches of Hokkan empire. A long time back, one who was charged with the same duties as I became too intoxicated with the powers given to her. You see, I - the Shenwu - I am charged with duties of conducting the relations between this world and the next. We believe that a human being has not one but three souls - or three aspects of the same soul, if you follow. One of these will die with the body, the second shall live on and be reincarnated, and the third must be ushered to the world of the dead. It is my task - or any Shenwu's task - to ensure that this passage occurs rightfully. (5) Otherwise, the balance is lost. Do you understand?"

Reishun could do nothing but nod. As she did, he inclined his head again and went on.

"But this Shenwu became too intoxicated with her powers and began to harness the souls she was meant to guide for her own purposes. She wished to be immortal, and the way to do this is to unite all fragments of your soul. This is a most abominable violation of the balance. She was ousted, of course, but her powers grew, and a small faction broke off from the main tribe in order to pursue her. By then she was already deformed, already a monster, prone to dwelling in the rivers to hide herself better. So we - our ancestors - travelled along the rivers to track her. But she made a terrible alliance, seducing a god who was looking for greater power over the universe. A great war was fought, then, between the gods and this dark alliance, and eventually, we of the Hei Xiong Ren invoked the gods to put a great curse on the beast that the Shenwu had become. She was killed, and his soul, now united, was broken into not three but nine fragments, a curse put upon them that the can never be united, doomed to belong to no realm at all."

There was a silence in the cave after this, as Reishun looked at the Shenwu, her heart beating harder than it should have. "So... you're saying that the man who is tracking us is..."

"The nine-headed beast is what she is known as now. Over the centuries, artists and storytellers have turned her into a nine-headed serpent - and into a man, at that. Her name is Xiang Yao. She is a fragmented being, very powerful and very knowledgeable, but each part of her you encounter is only a fraction."

"So she's looking for a way to be united with herself?"

"I do not know if that is even possible," said the Shenwu. "But she is certainly looking for a way to disrupt the balance."

"The man who attacked us," said Reishun, blinking as it dawned on her, "the commander of Sairou's army - he was able to inflict ... unspeakable pain on me. Was that-"

"Yes, that must have been a part of her. One of her fragments is after you now - which is why you must get away from the Shoryuu river as soon as possible."

"Another commander is-?"

"It is possible," he said, gently, "this fragment does not take a human form."

"...that's great," said Reishun, weakly, putting her face in her hands and rubbing it.

"But if she does not have human form, she will not be able to follow you as she can as a human being. There are limitations to her powers because of her form. So to hide from her, for the moment, all that you should have to do is to control your life-energies and not attract attention. Until she can release her lover - the god they know as the black dragon - from the divine clasps placed upon him by the gods themselves, her powers will remain limited."

"And..." Reishun let out a breath. "She could release those clasps by making use of the Shinzaho, right?"

But to her surprise, the Shenwu shook his head. "The Shinzaho can only be used by one of the god's own. You yourself could use their power - all four of them, not just the holy object of the beast god Suzaku. All she needs to do to take away those divine shackles, is to destroy the book. The copies of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. She has scouts searching for them in all countries. If the book perishes, the center will be destroyed."

"That's it? They need to destroy the book?"

"All copies," he agreed, and watched as she struggled with this information.

She didn't know whether to be overwhelmed or grateful, the magnitude of the problem becoming as real as the reality that the girl with no name had laid on her. She bit her lip, clenching her fists as though to draw from her physical strength the fortitude she needed to stand strong against this. She wanted to ask him more, ask him if gathering the Shinzaho would stop this monster, and what they could do, but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth. It felt like a secret - information that had been shared with Hikari in a dream. It was not her secret to tell, even though he was so perceptive, so intent and knowledgeable that he probably already knew.

"If I may, Seishi, I would like to ask you something," he said, a softly probing curiosity in his voice.

Reishun raised her head, a little suspicous.

"Do you remember?" he asked, a moment later, a softly probing curiosity in his tone. "Anything from your past life, that is. I must wonder, you see, for though we believe in reincarnation of course I have never had the chance to meet a soul who remembered their past life. So I wonder how it's passed on, and what is, if anything."

Reishun frowned and was silent for a few moments as she considered how to answer, more uneasy than she liked. Reishun thought of herself as a down-to-earth, sensible person, who could accept her minor emotional breakdown as a necessary outcome of stress. The uneasiness did not fit into this image of herself. Why should talking about something like that make her so unnerved? But it did, and though it wasn't a secret, not really, because he probably knew more about her life than she did, she had a strong, almost violent urge to protect it from view.

"I don't remember his life," she said, finally. "Not all of it. I especially don't remember his death, though I've not really tried. I remember the... ties I had with fellow warriors, and I recognised Hikari as a ... someone I was meant to know. I used to dream of it all the time - but now I don't." Not often, at any rate.

"Ah," he inclined his head in gratitude. "Dreams, our window into knowledge of ourselves, the most important kind. I imagine it's not easy to speak of, and I will not ask you more - though if ever you wish for a guide through your dreams, I hope you will do me the honour. I only wondered because your friend remembers nothing, and cannot reach for her own powers - though they reach for her - and I wondered if this is common."

Reishun frowned, trying to make sense of what he'd said - while trying not to indicate that there was no way on earth she'd ever ask him to analyse her dreams. When the first rational explanation crossed her mind, she raised an eyebrow again. "Good heavens. How much did she drink?" she asked, bemused.

It was his turn to stare in some confusion. Then, Reishun found herself weirded out by how normal he was as he laughed, truly amused. "I do not speak of your little friend - she remembers all, and has very clear vision despite the medicine. Perhaps even because of it."

"You mean the sake," she cut to the chase.

"Sairou's finest," he said, breezily.

Reishun frowned, and then, after a moment's thought, shrugged. Really, she was not quite sure if getting a thirteen-year-old drunk was a great idea. But then, if she was in no pain, it was probably alright. Not to mention, really, a drunken thirteen-year-old was the least of her problems.

"But I was speaking of your other friend."

"... what other friend? Nyan Nyan remembers everythi-"

"Well, perhaps '_friend_' is a bit of a stretch," he said, wryly. "I spoke of the woman who rescued you, the one who does not wish to have a name."

"Oh! Right," said Reishun, cottoning on. "I mean no, you're right. She's not my friend. I mean - well, she doesn't appear very friendly, really. She thinks I'm a ... I mean, I... don't know her at all-" She cut herself off, the weight of his words falling on her as she stared. "She... what do you mean by that?"

The Shenwu smiled slightly. "She wouldn't appreciate me telling you her name - one of them, anyway. But your journey is entwined with hers, I suspect, and she could guide you to the other holy objects."

Reishun continued to stare, speechless with surprise that, once again, left her feeling a little idiotic. Really, when you thought about, it was quite evident. Or perhaps it should have been evident, but she had simply missed it because she was focusing elsewhere, looking at the much less significant truth of her gender anf the terrible truth behind her words. "Who?" she asked, finally, though perhaps the more appropriate question would have beem '_which one?_'.

"Amefuri. Of the Byakko seven. You should go and talk to her now, and perhaps find your little ward before she falls into the river. Sairou's finest sake does have a tendency to make you do that. And Nuriko," he added, shocking her to no small degree, "perhaps you should know - she has reason to be unfriendly. She has lost a lot to get here."

* * *

Reishun was told, as she went out to look for Hikari, that the hunting band had just returned from their trip, and brought back good prey. So tonight, they would eat, dance and indulge in some of Sairou's finest for non-medicinal purposes. They told her that it was customary to have a dance, but because it was raining, they would sit in the shelters instead and sing.

The fires burned steadily at the mouths of the caves, and she moved from group to group, looking for Hikari. She was offered sake, but she choked on her serving the first time she tried it and set it down. Though the prospect of a certian lack of control was comforting, her senses felt cloudy enough from pure grogginess, and she really wanted to make sure Hikari was alright. So, Nyan Nyan and her walked through the paths between the caves, holding Reishun's cloak over their heads.

"Nuriko-chan?"

"Yeah?" Reishun looked at Nyan Nyan.

If the people of the Hei Xiong tribe thought it was was weird that there had been two of them when they'd arrived and three (overall) now, they didn't do anything to indicate as much. Reishun got the uncomfortable feeling that these people knew more about her and the other Seishi than she herself did.

The Shenwu calling her by her Seishi name had unsettled her substantially, perhaps because she had never liked to think of herself as Nuriko. Nuriko was a different person, who had lived and died and had a whole life of his own. She couldn't be him, because then she wasn't herself, and although on the whole it was a somewhat self-assured stance to don, she usually liked being herself. It was a conflict she didn't like to talk about, least of all with extremely perceptive Shenwu's she had never met before.

"Amefuri-chan will be coming with us?" asked Nyan Nyan, presently, looking at her anxiously.

Reishun paused. "I... don't know."

"Amefuri-chan should come with us! But Amefuri-chan is very angry!"

"I've noticed that," muttered Reishun, frowning. She had tried to reconcile what the Shenwu had said with her own impression of the woman. 'She has lost a lot to get here,' he had said, an uncomfortable, unsettling sort of truth that perhaps might have been easier to accept if she hadn't essentially attacked her with accusations of something she hadn't done. Sighing, she tilted her head back, and then looked at Nyan Nyan, raising an eyebrow. "Do you know anything about her?"

"Hai! Amefuri-chan was the last of Suzuno-chan's seishi to join! Amefuri-chan was a half-boy before!"

"A... half-boy? You mean she was a eun-"

"She was a half-boy!" said Nyan Nyan, almost sternly but not making very much sense. "She never died but she was born and she not remember but she very angry and Nyan Nyan think she's scary! Nuriko-chan talk to her!"

"I should-"

But before anything more could be said, something came hurtling towards them yelling, "REIIIISHUNNNN!" It was only because Reishun had decided againt the sake that she caught herself and grabbed onto Hikari before she rushed right past her (having evidently miscalculated what she was running towards), slipped on the rocks and fell into the river below.

"Hi!" she cried, with a wide grin that discounted the bandages on her arms. Then she squinted at Reishun, who cleared her throat delicately to avoid commenting on the sudden strong waft of Sairou's finest on her breath. "Oh woah, wow, you're two people!" (6)

Reishun sighed. Drunk. She was completely drunk. "How much _did _you drink?"

"Nooooo!" practically wailed Hikari. "I mean yeeeees, I drank quite a bit - it's very yummy, have you had any? I woke up and the man said it would take the pain away and it DID and it's so brilliant and I'm so happy to see you and hi! OH!" she added, before Reishun could comment on any of this, "but I see one for everyone else, but twooooo of youu! Like before!"

"Like when before?"

"Like before before!"

"Yes, that narrows it down!"

"NYAN NYAN!" yelled Hikari, alarming Reishun into letting her go as she tackled the tiny girl.

"KOWAIINEECHAAAN!" yelled Nyan Nyan, thrilled at this less cranky form of Hikari and tackled her right back.

It would have been comical if Reishun wasn't feeling like the world was about to end, because they met midway and fell right over. This proved to be very funny to Hikari, whose cackled set Nyan Nyan off, and Reishun was left to stand around wishing she could honestly claim not to know these two clowns. Giggling, they got up and twirled in one direction, nearly fell over again, and twirled in the other direction. Out of deep annoyance and frustration, Reishun finally stepped in and grabbed them both by their collars.

"_Could _you stop doing that for a minute?" she demanded, leaving them with no choice as she lifted them both off the ground and dangled them midair, still giggling. "Hikari, are you alright?"

"I'm fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!" said Hikari, snickering. "Heehee! It hurt sooooooo much before and he gave me stitches! I didn't know you had stitches in ancient China!"

Reishun blanched slightly, ignoring the part about ancient China. She hadn't the foggiest notion what that was but put it down to Hikari being fairly delirious. "Urgh," she said, decisively, setting them down.

"I know, right? And then I cried and then he gave me the medicine and I like the medicine and I've had a lot of it!"

"I can tell," said Reishun, frowning. A cranky Hikari could be picked on, a pleased Hikari could be fed, but this was an insane Hikari, a hyperactive, drunken and very extremely affectionate and happy kid that was surprisingly hard to deal with. Reishun could feel the first hints of a headache coming on, but before she could do anything else, Hikari leaned in to poke her on the nose.

"I liiiiike it. I see _both_ of you and you're so prettyyy..."

Reishun raised both eyebrows. At least that was one thin she had in common with Nuriko, she thought, not very modestly. "Have you seen Wu- that other woman?"

But Hikari was now poking her own nose. "I don't think I'm pretty," she announced, but mostly, she was talking to her own hands.

"You're very pretty," said Reishun, somewhat perfunctorily, shaking her head.

"But I'm not very pretty!" Hikari argued, wide-eyed, looking very much as though she was prepared to argue about this for several hours. Fortunately, Nyan Nyan tugged at Reishun's hand.

"There, Nuriko-chan!" she said, pointing towards the rocks on the other side of the river. It was still raining and there was no moon out - Reishun could not quite make out what the girl pointed towards, but knew it was Amefuri, the abrasive and more than a little unsettling Byakko seishi. Her stomach flipped a little out of something quite like alarm. "You talk to Amefuri-chan! Nyan Nyan take care of Kowaiineechan!"

"I can't see her," said Reishun, after a minute of squinting fruitlessly.

"I can see her!" announced Hikari, nodding vigorously. "I can see so much! I'm all-seeing! It's so cool! She's been on that rock since we got here! Oh!" she added, in exclamation points. "I can see two others with her! Like you and him, but not really!"

Reishun looked towards the sky, wishing for some kind of grand clarity or perhaps a sharp blow to the head. But this was not her day. This was the day she was given annoying amounts of information in bits and pieces and stupid fragments that she couldn't possibly piece together on her own. Then she sighed. "iTwo /iothers?" she asked, not expecting an answer. "What do you mean two others? There should be one other-"

But it was, of course, of no use.

"She's not very pretty either!" grinned Hikari, toppling into Nyan Nyan.

* * *

She left Nyan Nyan and Hikari to deal with one another and took one of the two bridges across to the other side, where the other girl sat.

Perhaps it wasn't very seishi-like of her, but she was almost glad to get away from their clear-hearted, unjaded laughter and excitement. On another day, she would have done anything to see Hikari so excitable. Hell, she would have done a lot just to have Hikari not complain, but tonight she lacked the energy to keep up.

Not only was Hikari in no state to understand anything remotely more serious than how pretty her nose was, Reishun was not sure of how much she ought to tell her at all. She was only a child, barely edging towards womanhood. Telling her of the story about the nine-headed beast was essential, of course, but perhaps telling her about the village would only hurt her. It was a lesson that needed to be learned, but it was a heavy burden and Reishun had to wonder if her own motivations in telling her were not driven by a selfish desire not to carry it by herself.

The rain poured heavily, soaking her clothes down to her skin, the cold reaching for her bones as she walked towards Amefuri, trying to fight off her uneasiness. She had been out on the rocks all day, if Hikari's word could be counted on at the moment. But it seemed likely, for the woman sat in precisely the same position as Reishun remembered seeing her, in the afternoon, facing away from the settlement, her knees drawn up to her chest as she looked out.

Reishun didn't quite know what to make of her. She remembered the Shenwu's words about her - that she had lost a great deal to get here - but that didn't really make it any easier to speak to her, especially when she was very certain that approaching her would lead to her lashing out at her. So instead, she stood there for a few moments and looked at her.

The clothes that the young woman wore seemed mismatched. Her upper clothing was certainly of a more western origin, shorter and seemingly warmer than the longer upper garments Hikari and Reishun wore, though the lower clothing she wore looked like common peasant trousers, made from hemp - the same material as Reishun's now abandoned bag. What made her more evidently a foreigner was her foot clothing; not the woven straw shoes that Hikari and her wore, but animal hide boots, sown together so crudely though she moved quickly, Reishun could see, at this distance, from the glow of the fires on the other side of the river, the thick threads used to keep the boots together, and leather thongs to hold them in place. (7) She looked very much like a warrior who had travelled a great distance, and this now made sense to Reishun, knowing her origns.

With a small sigh, she straightened her shoulders and walked to the rock where she sat. Then, she paused, uncertain of how to proceed, of what this conversation was meant to be like. She had questions, thousands of them - though asking this woman anything seemed like a stupid idea. She was still working out what to say, when the girl shifted slightly, acknowledging her presence.

"I suppose he must have told you," she said, a few moments later, sounding almost disappointed about it.

Reishun nodded, but of course, she couldn't see it. So, she said, "You didn't mention it at all."

"There is nothing to mention," said Amefuri, coldly, not looking around. "It's just a character on my back, nothing else."

"But your powers-"

"I have no powers," she snapped, cutting Reishun off so swiftly that Reishun had to bite her lip to stop herself from snapping back. That was what the Shenwu said: she did not remember and couldn't reach for her powers. _'Though her powers reach for her.' _What an odd thing to say (though, she had to admit, it was one of the less strange things she'd been told tonight).

They remained silent for a while, just listening to the steady drums from the opposite side and the falling of the rain.

Finally, Reishun pressed on. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been bringing messages from the other Byakko seishi - the ones who lived on from the first summoning - to the Empress of Kounan. But since the Shinzaho were removed from the Palace, I've been following them along with the other Suzaku warrior-"

"You've _seen _him?" demanded Reishun, unable to help herself.

The woman turned, finally, and raised an eyebrow until Reishun felt fairly uncomfortable. This was not the time for adolescent infatuation. Which was in fact true love, obviously, but it was still not the time for it.

"Yes," she stated, flatly. "But then you arrived so... loudly on the scene that I thought it might be more sensible to turn back around."

"We didn't mean to arrive that way," Reishun said, with a frown. She did her best not to sound plaintive and mostly succeeded. "We didn't really know."

Her eyes bore into Reishun's, though she didn't look away. It was the truth, and though it was a hard, cold truth, it was one she had to accept and learn from. Reishun felt almost defiant, against the possibility of the accusation that those deaths had been something she was responsible for, but the woman finally shook her head. "Now you do," she said, in a final sort of way.

Reishun shifted on her feet. "So where is he?" she asked, trying to look innocuous as the girl gave her another narrow look.

"He had crossed into Kutou the last I saw him, but he was on a horse and would have made good time by now."

"We have to find him," muttered Reishun, half to herself.

"My task is to protect the Shinzaho. If he is with them, then that's fine, but he isn't a priority. And I will travel with you," she added, in a grimly determined tone, so rudely that the proclamation became intrusive even though Reishun had been hoping she would, almost as though it was an insult. "You have no fighting skills."

Reishun raised both eyebrows. That was an insult, she was fairly sure, though it made no sense at all. It was difficult to work out what this girl wanted - to be helpful or to simply be mean. "I could fling you to other side of the river with one hand," Reishun pointed out, crossing her hands across her chest.

If there was a threat in her tone, it was lost on the girl, who looked back at her steadily, speaking coldly. "Physical strength is not all that it takes to make a good fighter. You will be useless to your ward if you don't know how to fight properly. That's not even your own strength," she added, so coldly that it reminded Reishun of the practiced ease with which she'd slashed through the soldiers' bodies that morning. "That's just _borrowed _strength - and if you don't do something to harness it, what use will you possibly be?"

Reishun stared at her for a second, almost incredulously. "What the hell is your seishi power, anyway?" she demanded, finally, fed up. "Being a bitch to people who you have to travel with?"

The girl's eyes gleamed. "It is because I have to travel with you that I'm telling you what I think."

"Well, _stop_!"

"Just because you can't handle the truth," she said, shrugging.

"What, and you're going to teach me how to do that?" Reishun raised an eyebrow, annoyed. It was galling because the girl seemed utterly unaffected.

"I'm not going to be around all the time to haul you out of trouble."

"You _weren't _around before, and we handled it just fine! And you'll recall I dealt with those soldiers faster than you would have-"

"Faster but _fruitless_!" Her voice rose as she appeared to lose her calm somewhat, much to Reishun's immense satisfaction.

"Fruitless? Just because _you _take pleasure in killing people-"

But that was going too far. "_What did you say?_" The girl was on her feet, and Reishun knew said something that had snapped a nerve. "Do you know why I'm here and not spending a normal life with my family? Because those very soldiers, men who serve the same _insane_ queen decided to destroy the tribe, because we chose to have our own beliefs. Do you know how many people have had to die so that I could be at that bridge to rescue your sorry, ungrateful, _stupid _behind? The people of that village, my tribe, and the oldest and one of the last two Byakko seishi, two days ago! They died for _you _and that _idiot _girl over there, because they believed that there was a cause greater than themselves - that they were _sacrifices_ for the greater good."

She was standing before Reishun now, looking directly at her, and Reishun found that she could not speak. There was a conviction in her voice that was perhaps more terrifying than the words themselves. "There _is _no greater good," she said, through gritted teeth, her voice cracking a little as she all be snarled at Reishun. "You're _it_. You're all there is, all that stands between what is and catastrophe. And you want me to feel sorry for killing the people who've been part of ruining my country and my land and destroying my family and everything else because of _what?_"

Lightning fell somewhere in the distance, and in the instant that its white brilliance flooded the skies, Reishun saw the face before hers for what it was. Furious, white from the cold, just a little too wide-eyed for all her calm sensibility. The girl was shaking, vibrating as though from the energy that had crashed from the sky.

And somehow, in that instant, Reishun knew, a wave of immense clear comprehension in the sea of confusion that had been her day. Somewhere, through the ringing echoes of the accusations thrown at her by the girl that she could not quite entirely deny, it fell into place - the girl with no name, the young woman who did not remember her past, the Byakko seishi - the woman who spoke of sacrifices and loss with such vehemence, especially of one of the last Byakko seishi. If Eian or Hikari were to die, then she would know, not because she loved them both dearly, but because they belonged to the same god - because they were bonded as only the Seishi could be bonded. She stared as it fell into place.

"The rain," she said, surprised, "it's you. Isn't it? It's you - it's been you for the last two days. You can't stop it, can you?"

Her words seemed to singe the girl away from her. She jolted away with a low animal-like growl, the rain masking any other evident signs. Reishun was almost sorry for having said it out loud, for having taken that anonymity from her. The vulnerability on her face lasted a minute and then was gone. She clenched her jaw defiantly, and glared at Reishun.

"We're leaving at first light," she said, her voice shaking as she did. "Make sure you're ready."

Then, she brushed past her furiously, leaving her to stand alone in the cold, steady downpour.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Okay, this chapter took a lot longer than I thought it would. It appears that people in the other story arcs have dropped off the face of the planet - but they will return, I assure you. All of this just... flowed from one scene to another, and interjecting other scenes would have meant a further delay in posting (and the subsequent nervous breakdown of the author out of pure guilt and panic for not sticking to the deadline) and the chapter would have been ENORMOUS. It is already fairly big. On the whole it should have been called The Longest Day in Kou Reishun's Life. Poor kid.

So... yes, the rain for the last few days was Amefuri. Nyan Nyan not being able to sense her comes from the suppressing of the chi thing, and yes, the mentor she's lost is the person you're thinking about. She did steal the bag and hand it right back, and yes, probably in her head she thought this was socially appropriate. And yes, she has a name other than Wu Ming (explained below). The character of Amefuri is a very old character design, though she has evolved to cut down on the angst potential (yes, it could have been worse). For a while, during the last few chapters, I contemplating making her a boy - but she's always been a girl in my head and it seemed silly to change that. Plus, I guess the whole 'gender isn't the issue' thing gets totally undermined if I do go against that, so I decided not to.

Also, a LOT of research went into this chapter, though I'm sure there are discrepancies. I honesty had fun amidst the panicking. So these are some notes to clarify some of that - as a warning, most of it is very wordy, as is befitting of a person with an MA in Ancient History.

Before the notes, though, thanks as always to Flashyfirebird for her awesome reviews and to my Mysterious Bunny Friend wife for pushing *nodnod*. A special thanks to MercuryMoon, who I bounced the Chinese terms (except 'Wu Ming', because of the plot potential) off shamelessly, and who is totally awesome for clarifying all of that. And thank you so much for still reading!

And now... onwards!:

1) _"Wu Ming"_ - I have a feeling anyone with the slightest knowledge of Chinese will smack me. For anyone else who doesn't want to smack me but is confused, while 'Wu' and 'Ming' are names indeed, together, and in this context, "Wu Ming" quite literally translates to 'No Name' - or the Nameless, or Anonymous, or even Nobody. I blame ... wikipedia and google translate (which can have entertaining results - so if this is an entertaining result, PLEASE TELL ME).

(It is also the name a collective of Italian writers, whose works I've never read, but whose interviews are fascinating, and who stated, in an interview for 3 am magazine: _""Wu Ming" means "No name", it's the signature used by dissidents in China and it is our tribute to dissent in that country and everywhere else. "Wu Ming" also means "unknown" and it is also a reference to the fact that we refuse the idea of the "Author" as a "genius" or a "star" whom the public contemplates in a passive way."_ ... and no that's not important for the story, it's just interesting to the present author and... random fun fact?)

2) _"Hei Xiong Ren"_, again quite literally, translates to Black Bear People. Thanks to MercuryMoon for clarifying this. *snugs her*  
(More random notes: This tribe is based roughly on the internet articles about past and existing practices of the Nanai/Hezhe culture in China/Russia (far, far northeast). The people allegedly have a kind of totemic relationship with tigers and bears - and this being the FY-verse, I picked bears, because we've already got an awesome White Tiger. They also believe in the thing about human beings having three souls, incidentally, so I wasn't pulling that out of my butt. Must say, it was a nice fit, once it came together. Reference: www(dot)ethnic-china(dot)com(slash)Hezhe(slash)hezheindex(dot)htm - fascinating reading for anyone who's interested.)

3) _Miao Jian_ - yes, that sounds a lot like Mitsukake's non-Seishi name, Myo Juan, but it has different meaning. According to babyhold(dot)com, Miao means Wonderful/Excellent/Clever/Subtle (talk about specific) and Jian means Wellbeing. But how I arrived at it was another wonderful fiasco with Google Translate, which translated the characters for 'Myoken' (which roughly means "heavenly eyes", according to onmarkproductions(dot)com to the characters for 'Miao Jian'). In case anyone was wondering, btw, _Huian _means "wise peace" or "kind peace". This isn't relevant, it's just random trivia. *nods*

4) Yes, this is a different version of the same myth as in chapter 11. Like any legend, there are variations of the tale and neither has to be true or untrue. And yes, the shaman he refered to was a woman (at least in his version of the story). It's tied in with the religin of the tribe, obviously, which would best be defined in modern terminology as Shamanism (which I would distinguish from the actual etymology of the term). I don't really know if the Shenwu communicates with bears or something - or hell, he probably does, this is FY-verse. I see him more as a kind of faith-keeper - one hypothesis about the meaning of the word 'shaman' is 'one who knows'. Also, according to Wikipedia, I could have used the term "nan-wu" (which means "male shaman") but I didn't, because I think, despite being male, the Shen-Wu probably does not pay that much heed to gender - which is a more subtle hint to gender ambiguity.

5) The thing about maintaining a balance between Heaven and Earth comes from a part of the Wikipedia article, which cites a text called the Guoyu, in which it is explained that

_"Anciently, men and spirits did not intermingle. At that time there were certain persons who were so perspicacious, single-minded, and reverential that their understanding enabled them to make meaningful collation of what lies above and below, and their insight to illumine what is distant and profound. Therefore the spirits would descend upon them. The possessors of such powers were, if men, called [xi] (shamans), and, if women, wu (shamanesses). It is they who supervised the positions of the spirits at the ceremonies, sacrificed to them, and otherwise handled religious matters. As a consequence, the spheres of the divine and the profane were kept distinct. The spirits sent down blessings on the people, and accepted from them their offerings. There were no natural calamities. In the degenerate time of [Shaohao (traditionally put at the twenty-sixth century BC.), men and spirits became intermingled, with each household indiscriminately performing for itself the religious observances which had hitherto been conducted by the shamans. As a consequence, men lost their reverence for the spirits, the spirits violated the rules of men, and natural calamities arose. Hence the successor of [Shaohao], [Zhuanxu, charged [Chong], Governor of the South, to handle the affairs of heaven in order to determine the proper place of the spirits, and Li, Governor of Fire, to handle the affairs of Earth, in order to determine the proper place of men. And such is what is meant by cutting the communication between Heaven and Earth." (Wikipedia article on "Wu (shaman)".)_

Again, this was an awesome thing to have to use. Who said nerdy research isn't fun?

6) Yes. Hikari is seeing more because of the sake. Who said drinking is bad? *ahem* And, no, I don't advocate underage alcoholism. Just in case. More on this in the next chapter.

7) Clothing and Candles: I did check both - hemp is accurate for peasant clothing in ancient China, and apparently shirts, pants and shoes were refered to as 'upper clothing', 'lower clothing' and 'foot clothing' - but correct me if I'm wrong. Also, her shoes and such are more... western, because of the climate and stuff. I've actually lost these links but I can find them, if need be. Candles have been recorded from a more recent time (300 BCE, I think) and were used also as clocks - so the different lengths to which the candles in the Shenwu's cave were burned refer to how much time has passed - lots of fuel used but in a pretty way.

8) Jiagu: Oracle Bones, on which some of the oldest writings (or symbols that could be seen as writings anyway) have been found. www(dot)chinapage(dot)com(slash)oracle(slash)oracle(dot)html

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**


	21. 20 Matters of Communication

_(The first section of this chapter refers in a mostly obscure fashion to methods of torture edging towards the slightly sordid. Mostly it should be troublesome to people with overactive imaginations more than anything. Read with care please.)_

* * *

**Chapter Twenty**

**Matters of Communication**

* * *

In an agony, he lay on the floor of Suzaku's shrine, terrible, everlasting pain coursing through his body. He screamed - he knew he did, his mouth open and his throat strained. But there was no sound. His master had made sure of that.

The great dark form curled sensuously around the golden statue of Suzaku. It did not yet have a form of its own, the dark being that exuded a sort of anti-aura about itself. You could not glow with the dark, for that was not logical, but this did. _He _did, and the power within the formless dark reverberated through the shrine. As his neck bent backwards, almost to the point where he could feel the bones cracking with the pressure, Jiu kept his eyes on his master, the black dragon that was draped over the golden statue so its lustre was drowned out. It was an almost obscenely invasive scene, one that Jiu himself would have revelled in if his master was not angry with him.

After what felt like hours, the pressure on him lifted, and he lay there, breathing hard, tears pouring down his cheeks as he struggled to get to his knees.

"It is necessary to punish you like this, my unwise servant," said his master's voice, echoing inside of him - as soothing and intimate as the voice of a lover. "You understand that, don't you?"

He nearly sobbed, but controlled himself, his pallid form shaking violently as he finally managed to get to his knees, and remained that way, his heaad bowed in respect for the god. "Yes... yes, master."

"You failed me, and so I must punish you. The girl was in your grasp. Had you not wasted time, you would have had her."

"Yes, master."

"But you will not fail me again, will you, Jiu?" The voice took on a stern note, even though it continued to remain within him, almost carressing him. He shivered, not out of pleasure though his body reacted against his volition. It was not the most that his god could do to him. There were other ways of bending a human being to a god's will. Bt that this was the most base, most corporeal held special significance. This was about punishing, about branding and making sure Jiu knew the consequences of his failures. He knew the consequences, and knew he deserved them, and so he did not object.

"No, master," he said, his voice shaking as his body arched backwards.

The formless darkness approached him, its cold, clammy touch scraping against his form frigid, sharp icicles might have. He shivered, more from fear than from the cold, as the advance progressed down a more sordid path, though compared to the terrible pain from before, this was tolerable. Tolerable, but terrifying, for he knew it was only the beginning and what had happened before would not compare to what was to come. "Master..." He shuddered, tears flowing freely, as he began to writhe. "Master please..." His breath hitched as the pressure in his chest bega to rise.

"Let us send a message, Jiu," said the voice, silkily, and he closed his eyes as though to prepare for it, though this was a futile gesture, as he well knew.

The silenced screams wrenched from his throat, as he was forced to remain motionless, arched and exposed. As the characters began to appear on his chest, the flesh splitting apart to give way to the shapes, the blood trickled down gently, leaving vermilion trails along the length of his body.

* * *

Hikari woke up a long time before Reishun came to shake her awake, her dreams giving way to a certain kind of pain, some of which was concentrated in her arms, some in her head (which she assumed had something to do with the sake) and some that she couldn't identify at all - a very distant awareness of something that she couldn't quite reach. It was very far away and her own physical discomfort seemed to draw her back.

She had a feeling she'd had a good dream, an enlightening, meaningful, adventurous dream. Though she closed her eyes to will herself back to the safer place, as the pain in her arms returned, inching over the fading influence of the sake, she found that she could neither sleep nor remember. She didn't want to move either, so she just lay there for a long time, waiting to be given a legitimate reason to be awake, and staring at the ceiling.

What had happened the night before? She knew there was a certain amount of sake involved, a taste she'd found quite foul until it had started Doing Very Nice Things to her brain and taking away the somewhat horrendous sensation of a sharp, pointy device going in and out of her already wounded flesh. She tried not to be in a foul mood even before the day had begun - who knew what kind of strange things would happen today, after all - but it was hard to remember how fortunate she was to not have been injured at a different location, or that no huge arteries had been sliced into half leading to her death by blood loss, or that the solider had been shot before he could bring the sword down harder than it had fallen, severing her wrist entirely. The pain mounted steadily, becoming a dull throb that exploded sharply everytime she tried to move her arms. Another reason to stay right where she was.

It became a tedious wait, and by the time Reishun came to wake her up, she was cranky from the wait and the pain and the lack of knowing what the heck she was supposed to be doing.

"Good mooorning," came Reishun's sing-song voice and Hikari scowled.

"Murf," she said, with great annoyance.

"That's the spirit! How are you feeling?"

Hikari opened an eye and looked at Reishun with misplaced fury. She felt lousy, nauseous fromt he drink and in a great deal of pain from her wounds, which seemed to be increasing steadily. With some effort, she made a grunting sound.

"Yes," agreed Reishun, not sounding terribly sympathetic. "I guess that only goes to prove that you should not drink."

This was of course the way they talked. Hikari knew that, and she generally liked it - picking on one another instead of talking about fuzzy bunny feelings was a lot more comfortable for her. But she was cranky and upset, and the fact that she wanted more than anything for her mother to pat her forehead and give her a hug made her even more cranky. "I'm coming," she said, coldly to Reishun.

Reishun, mildly taken aback, cleared her throat. "Um, okay - I'm going to go talk to the Shenwu, alright?"

"_Fine_! I'm coming!" she cried, annoyed, gearing up for an argument.

But Reishun didn't sound angry at all. "Take your time," she said, gently, so that Hikari felt immediately guilty. Damn it. Before she could tone down the annoyance and seek out a more human tone, Reishun had left, leaving her to dress herself. This turned out to be even more of a pain, because being drunk seemed to have made her revert to her old habits. She found that she had to unfold her clothes and put them on over her undershirt, and that all of these movements caused her a stupid amount of pain.

"Kowaiineechan need help?" asked a tiny, immensely kind voice from beside her.

"No, I _don't_, I don't need any help, just l_eave me alone_!" yelled Hikari, and found herself feeling much, much worse as the little orb floated out of the cave with a notable sniff. Furious with herself. Hikari put her arm through a sleeve and nearly yelped as the stitches seemed to be cut further into her flesh. Then, as she put her other arm in the sleeve and found herself confronted with the process of tying it all up, she felt stupid, because really, she could have used some help. It was with great difficult and no small measure of cursing, that she finished. Feeling miserable and unhappy and a little nauseous, she headed out.

It was, of course, still raining, though it wasn't pouring as it had been the night before. A cold and steady light rain fell, making it a frigid morning. Though there was no trace of sunlight, it was growing lighter in general, a lesser degree of grey that cast no shadows but made the shapes of the trees and the rocks distinct fromone another.

As Hikari stopped at the mouth of the cave, regarding the world with great disdain, she found that the strange woman that had saved them waiting for her. She was not armed as she had been before, though she carried a pack slung over the shoulder with something long and suspiciously sword shaped sticking out of it. It was somewhat gratifying to note that the girl looked as cranky as Hikari felt. They regarded one another with mutual misplaced irritability and seemed to derive some pleasure from this.

"Reishun?" asked Hikari, and the girl jerked her head to the right.

Hikari followed the jerk to find Reishun, Nyan Nyan standing beside her holding her hand, speaking with the Shenwu and his wife at the mouth of their cave. As Hikari watched, the woman handed Reishun what looked like a bundle of clothes and the latter bowed in gratitude before turning to look at Hikari and the disgruntled woman, urging them over. With silent irritation, they stepped out in the rain and trudged up to the Shenwu's cave.

"The Hei Xiong Ren would like to give you these gifts - in order to help you with your quest," said the Shenwu, as they came up, smiling in the way he did, with the skin crinkling around his face as though speaking of how much effort the gesture was.

"Food," clarified Reishun, smiling at Hikari pleasantly, though Hikari could only manage a nod in turn. "And cloaks. Here." She handed one to Hikari, tossing the second one to the woman without looking at her. She caught it midair and opened it out. They were made of some kind of animal hide, and were somehow oily, enough to protect them from the weather.

"For cloudy skies," said the Shenwu, smiling at Amefuri, who scowled, but bowed nonetheless. As Hikari struggled to open hers without actually having to move her arms, Nyan Nyan bowed to the Shenwu and then proceeded to give the Shenwu's wife a really big hug.

"And a horse," began the Shenwu, once they were cloaked, but Amefuri cut him off.

"No," she said, flatly, and not particularly politely. In fact, her tone was so abrasive and abrupt that even Hikari looked at her with some surprise. "You have such few horses - you need them, and we'll buy some from Shishants'un. "

The Shenwu didn't seem bothered by her coarseness. He took her hands. "It is kind of you to care. But we have enough, and your quest is more important."

"We'll make the same time on foot as we would with one horse between the three of us."

"Yes, but one of your party is injured," he reminded her, gently.

Hikari would have gone red at the accusatory look that the woman threw at her, if she hadn't been feeling as cold as she was. She opened her mouth to say that she didn't need a horse and could manage to get to this village on foot just fine, but the Shenwu let go of Amefuri's hands and stepped back, as though declaring the matter closed entirely. As Hikari watched, the young woman bowed low.

"Thank you, then," she said, and though her words were polite in her tone, they came across as sharp. The Shenwu didn't mind and nodded. "For everything," she added, even more sharply, looking furious. It occured to Hikari that she really did mean what she said. Before a further analysis could occur though, she said, "I'll go saddle the horse." And without waiting for a response, she turned and marched off.

Hikari raised both eyebrows and looked at Reishun. "She seemed a lot nicer when she was saving our lives," she said.

"She _is _a nice person," said the Shenwu. Then, as both Reishun and Hikari just looked at him blandly, he smiled, his amusement stretching out his face further. "Under the rudeness, she _can _be a nice person," he amended, before shaking his head. "You must change your bandages whenever needed - keep checking your wound. If it opens up, see a healer in one of the villages. I don't think it will," he added, catching Hikari's look of alarm, "but it never hurts to make sure. In a few days, it should be alright to take out the stitches - I've told Reishun how to do that, but if you are near a healer, that may be better."

"Thank you," Hikari nodded, finding that now that she was not delirious from the pain or drunk, she had a more difficult time speaking before this very organised, very wise and at the same time somewhat maternal, wrinkly man. "I-" No, that was it. This was just babble. Now she did go a little red. Why didn't she have something intelligent to say? "No, just...thank you."

The Shenwu nodded, beginning to turn away, when Hikari realised that she could ask him something, and then perhaps she would seem like less of an idiot. "Wait!" she cried, a little louder than was necessary. The cloaks worked very well, she found, for her blood seemed more capable of retaining its warmth, especially in her cheek area. Argh.

"Yes?" he prompted, gently, though Hikari was very aware of the amusement in his eyes - as well as Reishun's incredulous but greatly amused gaze on her.

"I- well, your sake. I mean Sairou's sake. The sake in general?" she said, frowning as she felt the hopeful cause of her speaking out - to not look like an idiot, that is - wither and die. "It- I could see things. I mean, I could see more things. I could see two of Reishun and- no, wait, not in the ... drunken way, you know, but in the ... way of Reishun having two souls- no. Not two souls. But-"

"You could see the one who came before her?" asked the Shenwu, sounding surprised by this.

"...yes." Why was her voice so tiny, now? "So I wanted to - I mean is it the sake?"

"I've never heard of the sake giving people the ability to see something like that," said the Shenwu, frowning at her. The expression suited him a lot better. "Has it ever happened before?"

"No," said Hikari, and then frowned, because that was not, strictly speaking, true. "I mean yes, it has. The first time I saw Reishun, for a moment. And then... when ...Amefuri-san dropped down from the tree. But never so clearly as with the sake, last night. I saw them so vividly. It doesn't make sense, does it? The sake numbed the pain completely, but it made my vision ... clearer."

The Shenwu was silent for a moment, considering this. "Maybe," he said, finally, "in lowering your normal senses, and rationality, if you don't mind me saying so, it allowed you to see what you otherwise cannot, but have the ability to." Catching Hikari's look of surprise, he tilted his head slightly. "Maybe you should think of it as an ability. The holy objects are known for making their holders more intuitive, more powerful."

Hikari bit her lip. "But I saw three shadows where I should have seen one when I looked at ... looked at Amefuri-san," she finished, saying the name awkwardly, as though unsure of what honorific the woman deserved. It seemed safest, but it sounded a little stupid. "What does that mean? Shouldn't there be two?"

"That," said the Shenwu, looking almost regretful about being unable to share this with Hikari, "is really not for me to say."

* * *

"So you don't remember anything after you turned away from waving at me on the hill?"

Subaru shook her head, though she had already answered the same question five times now. Waking up early in the morning, as she always did, she had been confronted with the certainly unusual but not particularly surprising sight of two grown men, lost to the world on her verandah, and three bottles of Sairou's finest.

Even Subaru had to admit, despite her mild annoyance (her husband had just died and the two idiots who were supposed to be taking care of her were drunk and passed out in her verandah), three whole bottles were quite impressive. Tokaki had found that, while tending to a wounded horse, one bottle of the sake blended with the horse's meal was usually enough to make him calm enough to approach. So three, between two men, was quite amazing. The only person she'd ever seen pull a feat like that was Kokie - but then Kokie had been large and round enough to consume generally larger quantities of food and drink without it being particularly surprising. This past experience told her what to do, and she made excellent use of her broom in waking them up.

Now, thoroughly scolded, properly laundered and somewhat less in pain from their experiment, the two men confronted her and their bowls of soup with more apt and solemn expressions. At least, Tasuki seemed solemn - he appeared to be handling his drink a lot better than Taka, who looked solemn as well but also as though he was on the verge of keeling over and dying. His soup remained nearly untouched, though Tasuki had made good progress with his. Really, Subaru thought, looking at him kindly, his repetitive questioning could be forgiven, because of the sincerity in his eyes and the weight of his burdens.

"I don't get it," he said, presently, setting down the unused soup spoon. "Those memories are just... missing?"

"Well, she _is _a hundred and fifty %^*#)# years old."

Subaru eyed the broom and then Tasuki, and though she met the twinkle of amusement in his eyes and appreciated what he was doing, he had the good sense to go back to hiding behind his soup bowl now.

She fell silent for a few moments, her hands clasped on her lap and her shoulders covered with a shawl. It was nearing midday, but she felt cold. She knew why she felt cold. Being a hundred and fifty %*$*) years old meant you learned a thing or two about your physical reactions. When Tatara had died, Subaru had been cold for a whole week, her feet freezing so much that Tokaki had devoted most of his time to rubbing them for her and heating pans of water for her to soak them in. It hadn't helped, because she wasn't really cold because of a physical ailment, but it had been extremely sweet. It was because of him that she'd been able to walk to the gate to find him ogling at some random woman passing by, and ironically enough, because of his indiscrete behaviour that the cold spell had ended.

Certainly she was miserable that no one would rub her feet and not being able to constantly chatter with Tokaki - but Subaru was wise enough, and frankly old enough, to really look at death as the next step rather than some sort of terrible catastrophe. Which was more than she could say to Taka or Tasuki about it, both of whom sat looking at her as though she was about to explode with over-feminine emotion. _Idiots_, she thought, fondly, aware that having someone to make soup for and sweep brooms at was probably quite helpful.

"I don't forget things," she said, turning to Taka. "I have a very clear memory. And I'm not hurt or anything. Really, Taka," she added, with a certain emphasis. "But the memories and the letters are missing. Although I don't really know what anyone hopes to get out of them."

"But those are the letters that Empress Houki wrote to you," Taka said, a hint of impatience in his voice, as though he did not want to push her because of her tragedy, but as though he thought she was losing her marbles. Really, it was probably not wise to smile, but Subaru couldn't help it, shaking her head.

"You did really think that Tokaki was the only seishi in the household, didn't you?" The flash of pain on Taka's face at the mention of his mentor was unmistakeable, but Subaru pressed on firmly. "I am not entirely as foolish as you believe me to be, Taka. Those letters were not written in the common script."

Both men frowned, looking up. "You mean, a code-" began Taka, but Tasuki's sudden yell cut him off.

It was just unfortunate that his bowl of soup was nearly full still and that being hungover made him jerkier than before.

"This is why you should have eaten it," Subaru told him, once he had stopped looking terrorised by the hot soup on his lap.

"Because I should have known Tasuki would make an unearthly sound and make me spill it?" demanded Taka, glaring at the bandit while Subaru hid a grin. One really had to wonder when that moment of transition had occured, in which Tasuki had become the more even-tempered of the two.

"Calm down, Obake-chan," said Tasuki, pleasantly, making Taka growl.

"It's an old script that only some women use, now," said Subaru, cutting in before greater tragedies occured, vis-a-vis the soup and Taka's pants. (1)

"My crazy sisters use it sometimes," explained Tasuki, quite cheerfully. "But very badly. They're such %*&!( foul-mouths that they probably only know the %*%*( dirty words. Actually, they may just have made most o' it up - people in my village can't %*%#() read, ya know, so it wouldn'ta %*%*) mattered. I 'ave five o' 'em," he added, by way of explanation for Subaru, who was looking at him with her eyebrows raised somewhat. "Sisters, I mean, not villages, 'course."

"At any rate," Subaru pressed on, turned away from Tasuki, who remained fairly oblivious to any disapproval, "it is a script rarely used now. Few people can read or write to begin with - even in the upper ranks - and women should spend their time cooking and sewing, rather than in literary pursuits. The only reason I know the script is because my grandmother taught it to me, before I was to be married. She said it was a way of sharing secret grievances about my husband with my friends. Of course, then I married Tokaki instead, and he didn't really have a problem with being told of my grievances in clear, usually loud, tones," she added, with a soft smile. Taka's face was twisting again, and so she pressed on. "Anyway, your Empress is another such practitioner. And if that's not enough, our letters were very indirect."

"Indirect?" asked Taka, biting his lip and looking very uneasy.

"Yes. When I had to tell her that something unpleasant was brewing in the political climate here, I spoke of the weather and my mother-in-law."

Taka and Tasuki wore identical expressions of incredulity. Subaru shook her head.

"Oh, don't worry - she did understand, because she wrote back to tell me about how she had lost the earrings her mother-in-law gave her, and that the weather was edging towards bad, but that they had enough umbrellas."

Their expressions didn't change, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Empress Houki does not have a mother-in-law. Don't you see?" They clearly did not see. They looked so utterly befuddled that Subaru felt far more fortified about the coded letters. "Men," she muttered, under her breath, leaning back in her chair.

Taka rubbed his eyes in frustration, though not before he realised that his hand was still covered with soup. Finding no dry or clean space on himself, he proceeded to wipe his hand on Tasuki's shoulder. A small battle ensued, by the end of which Taka's soup had been put to even better use, and leaked out from under the bowl on his head. Subaru wrinkled her nose.

"Anyway," said Taka, through gritted teeth, "are you sure they - whoever it was that put you in the cellar - couldn't have known that?"

"Who the hell would know that?" muttered Tasuki, snorting. "But maybe they %*%*$() yanked it out o' yer head like yer ^*^*#)) memories."

"That's not even possible!" snapped Taka, glaring at Tasuki with rage that no one could have denied a bloke with soup coming out of his years. But Tasuki didn't reply, looking at Subaru - and after a second Taka turned to look at her as well. On her face was the well known expression that people carry when something fat and obvious sitting on their shelves, having eluded their perceptions for unknown reasons, became known to them. An 'aha' moment, with perhaps a ding! Taka wondered, obscurely, what the universal sign for an idea having presented itself was in a world with no lightbulbs. Whatever it was, was flashing right over Subaru's head wildly. "Is that possible?" he asked, slightly uneasily.

Subaru opened her mouth and then closed it. Somehow, that which would have looked like a really stupid goldfish impression on anyone else was eloquent on her face, and spoke volumes. No, it said. It was possible. Or in the very least, it wasn't probable - but the improbability of it probably made it all the more probable. But since it was so improbable, the expression was all the communication the matter was going to get, without a little more prompting on Taka's part, because Subaru obviously felt awkward speaking of such insanity.

"Bloody hell," said Tasuki, mildly, and Taka could only nod along.

Subaru shook her head. "It really doesn't make sense."

"But it's possible?"

"It's... no. I don't think it's possible."

Because she looked a lot more troubled than she had when Taka had told her about what had happened with Tokaki, Taka leaned forward. "Are you sure?" he asked, looking at her steadily.

"Yes," she said, with some impatience, raising an eyebrow as the investigative look on his face.

"But you were looking like-"

"Oh, for god's sake, Taka."

Her eyebrows spoke to him now. They said, 'back off, you infantile excuse for a celestial warrior - I know what I'm talking about, even if I don't really know, and it's entirely perplexing. Fool.' Taka cleared his throat and leaned back.

"It is impossible. I've seen it done before, with my own eyes, but the only man with that ability died over a hundred years ago, Taka. His name was Yuen Xiao Li and he was a Byakko seishi. He died before Byakko was summoned and-"

"And there's no way he could have been reborn to this life?"

"We would have known," said Subaru, looking somewhat reluctantly at Tasuki for confirmation.

A moment later, even more reluctantly, he nodded. "It's true," he said, "we felt 'em come back - it was very weird, actually. Sort of like ... when they left, but different."

"What he means," said Subaru, feeling obligated to translate to more comprehensible terms, "that when our fellow warriors are reborn, we feel them come back, but in some ways, because they are starting new lives, it is also a reinforcement in some ways that your friends are truly gone."

Taka eyed Tasuki, whose lack of cursing belied his casual, non-soup-covered disposition. He knew his friend well enough to know that Subaru's practiced understanding of his pain wasn't helping him. On the other hand, Subaru spoke of it as though she had gone through it. Distantly, he remembered that Tokaki and she had mentioned that two others had been reborn to this life. "You said two others-" he began, but she cut him off.

"We did feel them come back, even though we didn't know who they were. But we were led to them. Well," she amended, "one of them was led to us. But Kagasuki was not one of those two." Subaru looked at Taka firmly. "It isn't him, Taka. We would have known."

It was difficult to argue with her. She was weirdly rational for someone who had just lost her husband of over a hundred years, but she clutched her shawl with such vehemence that it would have been mean to push her on the matter. More importantly, she regarded him with such a reasonably annoyed look that he was somewhat alarmed. But he was a seishi and brave enough to push the matter even when both people sitting before him looked like they wanted to pour another bowl of hot soup all over his lap. "Is there another explanation?" he asked, tentatively. "Sometimes, the only rational expression, no matter how improbable, is the answer-"

"The most ^&*%&( rational explanation," interjected Tasuki, with a vehemence Taka would later recognise as protectiveness, "is that she got whacked on the head with somethin' when the bloke was robbin' her letters."

"But-"

"Here," said Tasuki, smacking him in the chest with his spoon, not speaking unkindly. "Have the rest ' my soup and shut up and tell me what the %*%* we're gonna do about Chichiri."

"How-" _How does one shut up and tell you things at the same time?_ he was going to ask, but this time, he found the spoon shoved into his mouth.

* * *

They reached Shishants'un by what felt like afternoon - though Reishun was only judging the passage of time by the signs her stomach gave her, by means of feeble but comfortingly familiar pangs of hunger. The day remained soggy and dreary, like a bowl of old, grey soup that no one wanted to touch. The rain still fell, and if Amefuri's stubborn sulkiness was any indication, it would continue to do so for the next week or so. At least the cloaks seemed to keep them mostly dry, though a cold dampness crept into everything they touched anyway.

It had been a relatively silent journey thus far. Hikari had tried to be conversational, bless her, but she had made the mistake of addressing Amefuri as 'Amefuri'.

"That _isn't _my name!" the girl snapped.

"We're not going to call you 'No Name'," Reishun had said, trying to sound reasonable, but the girl had glared so much that they'd dropped that subject.

All other subjects followed suit. Reishun sensed that Hikari was in too much pain to be conversational when people were going to snap at her - which probably meant that she was in a lot of pain, because it was rare that she didn't have something unpleasant and critical to say. Even Nyan Nyan didn't speak. The silence was edging towards being oppressive, when they stopped for lunch, under the shade of the forest just on the outskirts of the village.

Before Reishun could so much as put her pack down, Amefuri declared that she wasn't hungry and she'd get the horses from the village while they ate. Coming from her, 'ate' sounded like a synonym for 'wasted time for pointless petty needs like the useless people they were', but she didn't wait around for any responses to that, stalking off.

Reishun sighed, and headed to help Hikari down from the horse. The fact that the girl didn't object to this at all (though she did meet Reishun's assitance with a furious sort of scowl) indicated that the pain in her arms wasn't getting any better.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" asked Reishun, as she set Hikari down on the ground under the shade of a large tree, though it was an obvious question. But even if all she drew from the girl was a crabby response, she would be happy; she knew that if the silent sulking went on any longer, she would simply sit down on the ground and howl like a three-year-old.

Hikari seemed disinclined to answer, and Reishun watched her out of the corner of her eye as she tethered the horse roughly to the tree. Then, with a great huff, she replied, "Do you want to know what coffee is?"

The Nyan Nyan orb floated out in interest, as Reishun raised an eyebrow.

Hikari spoke almost reverently. "It is this glorious, amazing substance, right? It's ... rich and delicious and bitter, but in the best possible way - sort of like sake, but ... really, really much better. You take one sip, and suddenly, it's like you're awake. I mean you think you're awake now, but you're not - not without coffee. With coffee, there is a stampede of clarity, a ... a deliverance of energy! I mean... the pain in my arms is so terrible that I'm spouting poetry, and what the hell could be worse, right? But with coffee? A little bit of coffee? I could deal with it. I could deal with it just fine!"

She paused, looking at Reishun with huge, intensely emotional eyes, almost as though challenging her to contradict her passionate outcry against the absence of caffeine. But Reishun was mostly beyond words.

"I really," said Hikari, conclusively, "really want a cup of coffee." Then, she slumped against a tree trunk and placed her arms carefully on her lap.

Reishun, still unable to form an appropriate response, nodded and stood there feeling a bit like she did when someone decided to be poetic around her. Cart-of-Potatoes-Man, her husband-to-be, had once tried to do this, and she had experienced a similar state of awkwardness, though admittedly, this was a lot less amusing. It was probably the closest that Hikari would ever come to saying that she wanted to go home, in a more-or-less sincere manner.

With a sigh, she sat down next to Hikari, quiet for a few moments, before rummaging through her bag to bring out some food. "Settle for an apple?" she said, and as Hikari snorted, she put one on her lap. Then, as a few moments passed, and nothing happened, she adjusted her seating so she was facing the young girl, and, ignoring the redness of Hikari's cheeks entirely, lifted the apple to her mouth so she could bite into it. "So how pretty was he?" she asked, with a grin, of sorts. "You know, the 'one who came before me'."

She was rewarded with a grin and a glorious description of what sounded like a beautiful man. They made a meal of a couple of apples each, and though it wasn't as substantial as roasted fish or even soup or something warm in general, it left them fortified. An adventure without food would have been an exceptionally dreary affair, Reishun concluded. She shared this with Hikari, who then launched what would have turned into a lyrical epic poem about the merits of caffeine, if Amefuri had not returned halfway through with two horses. Reishun, perhaps with some presumption, tossed an apple to her, but found it tossed back with much ingratitude and a certain amount of condescension.

"Save it," she said, in her abrupt manner. "And choose your horse. Are you two done?"

Without really waiting for a response, she produced a stick and squatted down in front of them, making wriggly lines on the ground. It was a second before Reishun realised what she was doing, not because she hadn't seen a map before but because there was very little connectivity between her sentences. Really, some people were just... weird.

If Hikari found it at all annoying that their otherwise pleasant conversation had been interrupted in this manner, she hid it very well behind the mask of supreme interest in the wriggly drawing. "It's a map," she said, after a moment, even producing a grin (and making Reishun scowl just a little - though why she was scowling, she really wouldn't have been able to say).

"We're here, at Shishants'un," said Amefuri, once again with no preliminaries. "It is mostly a hilly terrain beyond this. We won't stick to the main road because it's not safe. The Comamnder's allies are looking for you and-"

"But we left those behind, right?" said Hikari, forcing her to stop and look up. "If we just make good time then-"

Amefuri raised an eyebrow, directing a look of 'what, are you a moron?' at Hikari that made Reishun angry, though the young girl raised both eyebrows without seeming bothered by the condescension. After a moment, Amefuri sighed in resignation, sitting down properly as though preparing for a longer conversation than she had initially intended. It was not a gesture of defeat, as Reishun almost hoped for (really, she wasn't particularly fond of the cranky, rude, obnoxious woman, she'd decided), so much as it was something along the lines of a mutual understanding. A sensation similar to that which she'd experienced post-pigpen in the context of Hikari and the Empress rose and then fell as she squished it.

"What do you know about the man we're dealing with?" asked Amefuri, almost as though she was testing them.

"Um," said Hikari, who had once spoken of nervousness in the context of an exam - Reishun began to see what she meant and resisted the urge to pat her on the head. "... he's mean and he can cause a lot of pain?" she finished, frowning at the severe look Amefuri was giving her. Reishun was beginning to suspect that the severity was not an expression, really, but just the way her face was.

To her surprise, Amefuri nodded. "Alright. You know he's ruthless," she translated. "And he's very influential, and has spies everywhere, especially here, in Kutou, which as a country ... does not exist anymore." When they both looked confused, she scowled. "It's not one country, it's a lot of them - there's a lot of- you know, there isn't one king, there are a lot of small... petty idiotic people who think they should be king."

"Small chiefs," translated Reishun, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," she snapped, for no reason"And the Commander's men are here serving as cheap mercenaries, spies, petty lords- anyone who could instigate more war. Not that they needed much encouragement," she added, flatly. "So they don't need to follow us here. They were following you on the other side of the Shoryuu river because if they had caught you there, it would have been much simpler. There's no jurisdiction in Kounan to protect you right now."

"And there is here?"

"No," said Amefuri, giving Reishun a mildly annoyed look. Even without her weapons, she looked very much like a warrior, and she seemed to treat them as soldiers as well. "Here, you are bounty. If there was so much as a hint of what we're after, or what you are," she looked mildly accusatorily at Hikari, "then every stupid chief in this stupid country would try to kidnap you and bargain with you or worse. If we know nothing else about the Commander, we know that he doesn't care about the glory so much as the effectiveness of his policy. He only wants you dead - he doesn't care how he does it."

Silence, interjected with the gloomy rain, followed this statement as both Reishun and Hikari looked at her, perplexed and suitably alarmed.

"Well, that's very pleasant," said Hikari, finally.

"This is not a laughing matter," said Amefuri, very severely.

"Do I look amused?" demanded Hikari, looking more stressed than anything.

Reishun patted her on the shoulder. Really, Amefuri made the place sound like a deathtrap, even if she probab;y had good reason for it. But it wasn't this that she was focusing on, though perhaps she should have been more paranoid about people hiding in trees and trying to kill them. She was thinking instead about the harsh words they'd exchanged on the cliffs the night before. It was the stupidest thing to think about, but there it was: she, Amefuri or Wu Ming, or whatever the hell they were supposed to call her, had been wrong. She would have had them believe that there was no hope at all, but any possibility of success lay in them staying alive and finding the other Shinzaho. So she was wrong, because there was some hope - there had to be, after all, even if she herself didn't believe it. Why would they be fighting so hard if there wasn't any hope? 'Haaaah!' she thought to herself, and felt a lot better.

"What the hell are you grinning about, Reishun?" demanded Hikari, making her blink to realise both girls were looking at her with incredulous, cranky expressions on their faces.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head and clearing her throat. "Nothing at all. You were saying?"

Giving her a deeply suspicious look, Amefuri began again. "So we're here," she said, and they all leaned forward again.

* * *

"I hope you know the way you're fondling those letters is sort of obscene."

The commander stopped, his hand still in between the sheafs of parchment, and looked up to regard the man before him. He was slumped in a chair, looking much like a bag of bones that had been tossed there, and he sat there in a manner that was deliberately disrespectful. 'Filthy' was not a strong enough term for the sight he presented. His long hair was matted with dirt that in the light from the lamps in the commander's room looked exceptionally vivid, and from where he said, Xiang could see the blackened undersurface of his nails. The obnoxious grin completed the picture. He was a vision in annoyance.

"Remind me again why I haven't killed you yet, Yuan." There was a throbbing in his chest, though he ignored it.

"The pleasure of my company?" smirked the man, quirking an eyebrow.

One had to admit he had a certain novel charm about him. No one that Xiang knew would dare speak to him in this manner, testing his patience. They needn't have bothered. He'd had a very long time to hone his powers of perseverance and very little about human beings surprised him at all. At least this man was somewhat entertaining. And useful, as it happened, though the letters he had brought for him were mostly just very dtailed missives about the domestic pursuits of two women in different countries. "So, other than an insight into the socio-political differences between our countries, what do these letters tell me?"

"I thought only women could read those. That does cast a certain light of comprehension on your behaviour." Then, as the Commander only looked at him, he shrugged. "I suspect you could read between the lines or something. Why would the Empress of Kounan and one of the last two remaining first generation Byakko warriors correspond with one another? It's hardly likely to be about soup recipes, is it?"

The Commander's long bony fingers moved through the letters again, flipping them over. He said nothing, though an incline of his head indicated he concurred. "But that does not tell us anything new, does it?"

"How did you become Commander, Xiang?" asked Yuan, reaching for a peach from the bowl of fruits on the table beside him to bite into it. The juice dribbled unattractively down the side of his mouth. Xiang's lip began to curl slightly, but this didn't seem to bother the man. "Your aim is to dislodge the beliefs of the people in the four gods, in all countries, especially Kounan which controls so many resources. And how better to do it, than to discredit the people who represent that glorious time as traitors of the people - a threat to all things progressive, new - all that your stand for, you and your united empire. I know exactly what those are worth," he finished, grinning widely, so Xiang could see the half-chewed bits of peach in his mouth. "And you know what I can do - it would be stupid to kill me."

"For the moment," said Xiang, regarding him coolly, with narrowed eyes, and falling silent as he considered him. He was despicable, there was no doubt about it, self-serving to the point of insanity, arrogant to the edge of complacency. But he was right. There was no need to kill him, not just yet. And if he could complete swiftly the task that Xiang's own methods would take several days to complete, then perhaps there was good enough reason to give him a chance. There was no escape from the castle, not if Xiang didn't want him to leave. The worst he could do would not be the end of his own plans.

"In short," said Yuan, a smirk gracing his features as the Commander's eyes narrowed into slits, "you have a lot less to lose than I do to gain."

Before he could answer, the slight throbbing in his chest became more intense, growing exponentially by the second. He only tightened his hold over the letters, gritting his teeth in fury as he looked at Yuan. "Guards!" he snapped, suddenly, as Yuan watched him, the smirk annoyingly in place. Two of them turned up, men much larger than Yuan himself, towering over him. The bony, filthy man leapt up, but before he could move, they'd gripped his arms. "Toss this maggot in prison!" snapped Xiang, positively growling as they turned and marched him out of the room.

Not a moment too soon, the door closed, and the pain exploded behind his eyes. It was pure force of will that had him getting up and walking unsteadily to the door, breathing through his teeth like a ragged, wounded animal. With shaking hands he undid the clasps of his finely crafted mail. The mail dropped to the floor with an eloquent clatter, his shirt, the front of it soaked in his blood, following. He inched to the round mirror on his wall and looked at himself, and the wounds opening slowly on his chest, taking on the shape of characters as his master, his god, in some distant land, carved out instructions on the chest of another.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I apologise to the... one or two people reading this, that this chapter took a while; I think broke my deadline twice over. Here are my excuses: the last one sort of broke my brain (this is why one should remember that writing is for fun and not everything needs to be a thesis with footnotes - lesson learned!) and also there was a birthday (I am OLD :D) and national festivals with awesome (but very loud) people (that I love to pieces of course) and I have an exam coming up and I'MSORRY ;-; As a warning in advance, I don't know if the next one will be in time. The exam is on the 15th of September, so until then, possibly, this story will move much slower. But it is all coming, definitely.

Thanks so much to _Flashyfirebird _for the review and to my bunneh wife for nagging ^^ I couldn't do it without knowing people care enough for me to go on. And thanks to anyone else who's reading. ^^;;

1) _Nu Shu:_ This is indeed a script used in China almost exclusively by women. There is some debate about how old it is and how new it is, but it's quite fascinating nonetheless. I don't want to write a paragraph on it, so for anyone who's interested, wiki it, or go to crystalinks(dot)com(slash)nushu(dot)html. It's pretty damn awesome. In this story - is it totally exclusive to women? I ... don't know, don't think so, but I'm mostly using it as a script that few people know. Fewer, that is, than the number of people who would, realistically speaking, be educated in ancient China.

2) For anyone keeping track, _Yuen _means Man of Ambition and _Xiao Li_ means Intellectual. And also, _Yuan _means Source.

3) _Shishants'un _is an actual village in China, but I may have massacred the romanisation. It should translate approximately to Stone Village.

Keep reading and take care all!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	22. 21 The Broken Wing

**Chapter Twenty-One **

**The Broken Wing**

* * *

Chichiri did not wake, so much as he found himself suddenly and terribly conscious.

For a moment, he thought he'd escaped, leaving behind the labyrinthine place where his memories and fevered dreams bled into one another. But in the next instant, he realised this was no escape, for he could hardly make sense of the corporeal sensations about him. Something cold was pressing into his face, but whether this was a cool cloth or a cold, hard floor, was all beyond him. He smelled something, heard something, but none of it really made any sense.

Slowly, it came to him. He felt as though he had fallen wrong, somehow, like his body was bent out of shape. Nothing else could really account for the mindnumbing agony coursing through his bones. The pain exploded as the awareness of his dreams faded, and he thought he heard himself cry out - but there was a ringing in his ears from the white hot pain that served as a buffer between all other noise and his eardrums.

But after a while, this faded, ever so slightly. It was not the kind of pain he had felt before - somewhere in the recent past that his mind couldn't quite reach. It was the kind of pain that was radiating from his bones in an aftermath of agony. It surprised him somewhat to realise this, but also comforted him in a strange way. He was cold, hungry, terrified and in more pain than he could imagined in his most grotesque nightmares - but it was a state of raw existence, a thousand times more simplified than than the paths he had wandered. It was animalistic, but there was a relief in that.

In a strange way that he didn't think about, as he closed his eyes, it made sense. As long as he didn't think about it, it made perfect sense. He was somehow very aware of his mind receding from the pain into a colder, darker place, where even the dreams couldn't reach him. Odd, that this should be relieving, he thought - his last thought before he allowed the blackness edging into his brain to claim him, surrendering to a gloriously dreamless sleep.

* * *

The thing about ancient China was that eighteen years had not led to a large number of changes. Miaka found it remarkably easy to return to her old schedule, as though she'd never left, except that this time around it was a lot more relaxed. The only thing that had changed was the daily prayers conducted outside Suzaku's shrine, the doors of which were for some reason locked. Everyone gathered around every morning to pray, and after partaking once and feeling decidedly wrong about it, Miaka now tended to hang back, bow her head and hide her frustration.

It was worse today, for Houki had not come. Though Houki was always in the front of the gathering and Miaka had been given a spot on the side (the symbolism was screeching loud, she thought), it was nice to know there was a friendly soul in the crowd. Hell, she would have been happy if people noticed her at all.

She had been here for three days now, and no one seemed to be exceptionally bothered by her. Her serving girl came at what was probably too early an hour to wake her up, and then she had breakfast with the Empress. As the waiting ladies were forever present, they could not speak freely during the days. Only in the night, sometimes, Miaka would go to Houki's room, a little like an illicit lover. This was unendingly frustrating, though Houki did not even seem to notice her lack of privacy.

If anyone in the palace was aware of this, they did not seem to care. It was of course an act, but sometimes Miaka was reminded of the patronising amusement with which she'd regarded Hikari when she'd played out the court intrigues game, while Hikari had taken herself very seriously. In this situation, Miaka was the kid with a dramatic idea and everyone else seemed to merely be humouring her presence. Already she'd had to hold back yelling at several people just to make them react (something that would have been unproductive - at least she knew that, even if she wasn't particularly happy about it), but they were playing the court intrigues game now, and so she said nothing and trusted no one. It was all very dramatic and, well, _high school,_ and since everything was so implicit, it was also mildly ridiculous. Yui would have compared it with a silent corporate takeover.

Later, when she looked back on the events of the day, she would blame this restlessness and the fact that she hadn't eaten breakfast. It wasn't as though she planned on it, but as, heading back after the prayers, she came upon Boushin and his retinue alone the corridor heading towards the court chambers. One couldn't have pinpointed the moment where she decided to be idiotic - it was probably an ambiguous entity stretched across time and space - but something along the lines of instinct propelled her towards the small party, and before she knew it, she'd spoken out loud.

"If it is alright with you, Boushin, I would like to talk to you."

She knew the moment everyone turned around to eye her with contempt that this was a bad idea. But she pursed her lips, and looked directly at Boushin. "Alone," she added, without glancing at the attendants he was with.

It struck her, as it had several times in the past few days, how very much like Hotohori he looked. He appeared to have Houki's nose, but the eyes that stared at her unblinkingly were Hotohori's. And that was what made it strange. She couldn't remember Hotohori ever having been so expressionless and unflinching. He had perhaps been too compassionate a person, but that was what had made him so beautiful. And here was his son, so like him and so unlike him at the same time.

"We are alone, Suzaku no Miko," he said, finally, coldly. "These are loyal servants of the state, you can say anything you like in front of them."

"I ... don't think-"

"Or perhaps the priestess believes that one of your own is plotting against you," the prime minister spoke up, his voice cold and derisive.

Miaka looked at him, slightly incredulous. The nerve of the man. Of course someone was plotting against Boushin, and she wanted to scream that it was him. But the cold challenge in his eyes held her back. Instead, she looked at Boushin, trying to work out why the heat was rising to her cheeks. Not that she was unfamiliar with the sentiment, of course. Being herself, she'd had numerous opportunities to experience the horror of knowing one had said too much, or spoken out of turn, or fallen down in front of the emperor of a large country. Really, these were experiences she had a handle over.

But this was not like that. It was illogical for her to be embarrassed, at that, given that she was right. But it was like being made to stand before a row of unfriendly faces while each of them looked at her with scrutiny and open hostility. She had never felt this vulnerable or unwelcome in Kounan, and it was shocking. Swallowing, she forced herself to stand still and reach for the same kind of unfathomable and probably misguided courage that had driven her to slap Nakago across his face.

"Perhaps I do," she said, calmly, keeping her eyes on Boushin's smooth face.

His expression didn't change, nor did he flinch, but around them Miaka could feel people bristling with anger and shock at her words. The tension in the atmosphere around them was palpable, though neither of them moved for the longest of moments, before finally, with lips curving upwards just a little, Boushin inclined his head towards the door. Miaka had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at the theatrics, as she walked in through the door. If Boushin was so keen on being a grown-up who didn't need his mother, then why couldn't he act like a grown-up? Never mind that grown-ups were not supposed to use that term to describe themselves.

The door closed behind Boushin, enclosing them in the (comparitively) small room, though the tension did not ease. As always, when she looked at Boushin, she felt uneasy, uncomfortable. The uneasiness that had seemed ridiculous a little while back came back unequivocally as she looked at the young Emperor, and though she didn't believe she had anything to fear from him, she kept her distance from him, something about him nearly repelling her.

"Why are you here?" he asked her, so coldly that she could hardly believe he was Hotohori's son.

"Boushin, I-" But then she cut herself off, catching the look on the face of the boy she'd once seen clinging to her old teddy bear, his eyerows slightly raised and an imperious demand in his eyes. She raised her own in turn, as though to check if he was joking. It transpired that he was not. _Brat_, she thought, furiously. "Your _majesty_," she amended, through gritted teeth. "I told you the reason I'm here is-"

"I don't know if I entirely trust you, priestess. There is no reason for you to be here, after all. The book is a very powerful, holy object. Why would it send you here without purpose?"

She wanted to tell him everything, in loud ringing tones that left nothing to the imagination of the eavesdroppers she was sure were spying on them. She wanted to tell him that the book was dying, and that they needed to act quickly. Chichiri was missing and, if Houki's narration of Hikari's dream and Yui's story had any clue embedded therein, then there was some kind of nine-headed snake monster running amuck! Hikari, her child, the one in whom Suzaku's powers were housed, the one who represented at least in part Boushin's own father's legacy, was missing and who knew what the hell was going on!

Of course, she couldn't say any of this. She could only glare at him with intense fury and hope he could read her mind. The truth was, and it was shameful, that Miaka did not trust Boushin either. Even Houki had not spoken in favour of telling him of what they knew. Miaka didn't know if she should loathe or pity a man whose own mother didn't know whether she could believe in him. "I do not believe that the book intended to send me here," she said, as calmly as she could.

"This is preposterous," he said, his voice quivering only a little. She had been so busy glaring at him that she hadn't noticed he was glaring at her as well, losing the seemingly immutable control he'd displayed outside. "The next thing you know, you'll be claiming you know nothing of the objects that have been removed from my palace!"

Thrown, because she had hardly expected him to speak of anything so openly, Miaka openly gaped incredulously. Boushin seemed to be losing his senses, it appeared. "What?" she asked, struggling to sound soothing and failing monumentally. "I don't know the-"

But that was all he needed. Her words seemed to trigger some kind of reaction in him. She caught the moment of disjunction, the instant in which his control shattered entirely, exactly a second before the ornament crashed into the wall to her right.

Miaka stared at him, too shocked to speak. The door swung open, and the prime minister burst it, guards in tow. "Your highness!" he yelled, though Miaka wasn't sure if this was concern or a warning. For the moment, she didn't care. There was an unrestrained wrath in Boushin's now contorted, furious face that she couldn't look away from. "Your highness, you must-"

"No!" Boushin practically roared in response, and Miaka actually flinched. "Just because she saved this nation eighteen years ago does not mean I need to listen to her lies! And you did nothing! I have been told the truth of your battle, Miko. If it hadn't been for you there would have been no battle to fight and no demon to save the country from! People died because of you!"

A ringing silence fell on the small room. Suddenly, Miaka was cold. She opened her mouth to try to formulate a response, but couldn't do so. Ringing in her head was not only Boushin's accusation but the memories of the number of people who had in fact died, and the one in particular Boushin was probably refering to. Then she felt horrible. Here she was, casting judgement on something Boushin may or may not have done, when he had more than good reason to hate her. Who was she to tell him what to think? She had to forcibly stop herself from moving as he took a step towards her, and could only stare in horror as he leaned in, with his eyes - Hotohori's eyes - gleaming with mingled loathing and anger.

"If the book sent you here as a mistake, priestess, maybe you should accept it as a mistake," he said, speaking softly. "The time of the book is over. The prophecies have been fulfilled, to whatever end. You don't belong to this world anymore. You are here out of ... respect for what you've done." He looked as though he'd swallowed a mouthful of broken glass. "Do not abuse your privileges, or I will be forced to break tradition."

He stepped back, his face composed again. Before another word was said, he turned around and stalked out, his retinue following him. As she raised a hand to her mouth, Miaka realised she was shaking. Somehow frozen to her spot, she stared at the open door and the bright sunlight outside, belying the darkness that had marked this palace. But were they wrong? Was their time truly over? Were they just obsolete people struggling to make sure they didn't die out? It was a full minute before she realised that she wasn't alone in the room.

Then, she turned and stared stonily at the prime minister. He smiled back, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. Yuck, she thought, with great disdain.

"You will stay away from the Emperor," he said, still smiling.

Miaka raised her chin. "You will not tell me what to do."

The man laughed, and she wanted to throw something at him, or perhaps just throw up. Houki had told her of her experience with him, though there were no traces of the encounter on her arm. Miaka could believe her. There was something entirely unsettling about this horrible man, something that made her skin crawl. And the fact that he was smiling like a total bastard - well, that just made her want to punch him.

"You'll find, my dear woman," he said, sounding so self-assured that she wanted to punch him for a whole new reason, "that I won't even need to."

Then he swept out, leaving Miaka utterly bewildered. What the hell did that mean? Was he going to try to kill her or something?

Then, she sighed. Of course he was going to try to kill her.

She leaned against the table and lowered her head, suddenly exhausted, not because she was unfamiliar with people tryign to kill her but because everything was happening in so convoluted a manner. This wasn't her forte. Her forte was straightforward pugheaded courage in the face of insurmountable odds and falling into lakes, and neither of those was liable to be very helpful at the moment.

The sunlight caught on something in the right corner, and she looked up. Lying there, gleaming in the brightness of the sun, were the fragments of the small, old ornament. As Miaka shifted, to stop the reflected rays from hitting her eyes, she realised that the piece glaring at her was the phoenix's wing, stretched out in flight.

Miaka stared at it and she allowed herself one moment of truly unsettling doubt. Were they wrong? Was their time truly over? Were they just obsolete people struggling to make sure they didn't die out? Maybe the book was dying for good reason, because everything that had been predicted in the book was over and done with. She was faced with the same sense of dejection that ceases any hero at the end of an adventure, when they were faced with the inevitability of life being forever mundane and nothing ever measuring up to what had chanced. And maybe the people of Kounan would truly be happier if they let events take their course.

Then, staring at Suzaku's shattered form, she felt guilty. Her life had taught her to have faith, and here she was, doubting not just herself but everyone else, including Taka and Hikari. Shaking herself, she bent to pick up the broken wing, and, holding it close to her abdomen, carried it all the way back to her room.

* * *

Three or four days ago, the farmer's wife told them, patting her slightly reddened cheeks as she spoke, a rather handsome man on a horse had passed by the village. On his way, he had apparently wooed many-a-maiden and left them all heartbroken. And oh yes, he had been carrying a pack and a really fancy sword, and he was heading east, but ever so much more importantly, he was a vision of perfection.

"That's him!" said Reishun, cheerfully, ignoring both her companions and whatever deeply cynical expressions they had donned as a response. After nearly two days of putting up with Amefuri's incredible silence and Hikari's general crankiness, which seemed to grown exponentially every hour (corresponding with the itching in her arms, of course, and Reishun felt terrible for the girl, but it was still fairly annoying after a while), she felt much like a dog who had been given a bone.

After their brief respite at Shishants'un, they had travelled relentlessly, stopping only for the night. Hikari grumbled when they stopped because she had less to distract herself with, and Amefuri wouldn't have stopped at all if the thirteen-year-old hadn't fallen off her horse from exhaustion. No one seemed to want to listen to Reishun, who was in favour of short regular breaks, simply because that way, if they did run into trouble, they weren't all exhausted and hungry, and in Hikari's case, cranky (though it had to be admitted that she would have been cranky even if they had stopped and rested every now and again).

News of Eian was a welcome break, and also a minor victory because Amefuri had believed that no good could come from stopping at a village and simply asking for directions. Reishun's expression was suitably smug, and the other woman snorted and turned away from her.

"Fine," she snapped, stomping out into the constant drizzle, leaving Reishun and Hikari to thank the still red-faced farmer's wife.

"He is some kind of hero, isn't he?" she asked, with a very small giggle.

"Apparently he's some kind of idiot, but sure, if that's what you want to believe. Come on, Reishun," Hikari tugged at her arm (very lightly to avoid hurting her own arm) and headed out to where Amefuri stood with the horses, before Reishun could comment on the unwarranted accusation tossed against her beloved. Bowing again to thank the farmer's wife, with a bright grin on her face, Reishun followed them out.

It was still drizzling, and though it had probably become less wet, it was just a question of degrees. Clearly, Amefuri's tactic of ignoring everything was not working. As Reishun reached them, she caught the Byakko seishi glaring at her in a manner even more intense than was normal. Hikari was saying something, and as Reishun came closer, she caught the last bits of it. "...always meet nice people, even if some of them think we're trying to steal their pigs. Don't we, Reishun?"

The accusation in her gaze suddenly made more sense. Reishun turned away from the woman's gaze. "We do," she agreed, finally.

"I don't think we should stay in the village," the Byakko seishi stated, taking away the rest of Reishun's good mood.

"Why," asked Hikari, sounding more frustrated than she did surprised, "do you know of another warm, dry shelter where we could bathe in a nice warm tub of water?"

The Byakko seishi stared, first at Hikari, and then at Reishun. It would have been less effective coming from anyone else, especially because Reishun had never been particularly moved by the wordless stares that were supposed to communicate ever so much. But the cool greyish eyes seemed to bore unforgivingly into her, printing the harsh accusations in Reishun's mind. It would have been infuriating if Reishun didn't forcibly remind herself that she knew nothing about her, and Reishun owed her no explanations. Except, of course, that she did.

"She's right," said Reishun, calmly enough, inciting another cool glare her way, this time from her younger traveling companion. With a sigh, she turned to help Hikari onto her horse. "We'll find somewhere else to rest. It's safer that way."

Hikari scowled and shrugged, as though to dismiss her desire for a warm bed and a good night's sleep as a passing moment of weakness. She kicked her horse into a gentle trot, taking the road heading east. Reishun hung back for a moment as Hikari trotted off, giving the Byakko seishi the kind of look grown-ups sometimes share when they want to talk about something seriously without the kids coming to know about it. The cold greyish eyes met her brown ones, and there was some more unproductive glaring, before Reishun took the plunge.

"Look, I know you're... well, I don't know you," she amended, swallowing slightly, though she looked at her quite evenly. "But you could lighten up a little."

"We'll try that on the next batch of soldiers who come for us," replied Amefuri, just as evenly, but about a thousand times more coolly.

Reishun looked at her silently for a moment. "That isn't particularly fair," she said, keeping her voice steady.

"And we'll tell that to the next lot of villagers you leave behind to die."

"I don't mean that we need to let our guards down."

"You didn't tell her," stated Amefuri, coldly.

"No, I didn't," said Reishun, looking at her steadily and taking a breath to steady herself. She wouldn't apologise. She had thought about telling her, but decided against it, given everything she had to handle to begin with. Maybe when she was in less pain, Reishun would, but now, she knew, wasn't the right time for it. Amefuri, of course, knew no such thing.

"Don't you care that she knows what the consequences of her actions are?"

Reishun took another deep, fortifying breath, and held back a completely unproductive but potentially satisfying question about how she found the energy to be such a bloody pain in the butt all day long. "I do care," she said, evenly enough. "But she's in a lot of pain at the moment and-"

"That isn't an excuse!" cried Amefuri.

"She's a _child_!" snapped Reishun, in a tone so fierce that the woman before her blinked. "I don't know how they treat children where you come from, but around here, we don't burden them with terrible things all at once! She's got enough to deal with as it is, for Suzaku's sake, and you're not making it any easier, so just lay off her!"

She glared at Amefuri, breathing just a little unevenly. She raised her chin, almost challenging the woman to say something cutting and mean in response. But she didn't. Though Amefuri's expression did not soften in any manner of speaking, something did shift behind her eyes.

It took Reishun a moment to realise that she may have actually struck a chord and then she was embarrassed. She had won, in a way, though it occured to her that she was the only one looking at their interactions as a constant battle. Perhaps she should have remembered what the Shenwy had said rather than behave so aggressively. Suddenly ashamed in a way she couldn't explain, she looked away from the woman's face. "I'm sorry, I-"

Then she stopped, cutting herself off from what would have been an even more embarrassing apology. By the other woman's stunned and alarmed expression, they'd both felt it, the sudden jolt in the air, a flash of... _something_. As one, they turned to look at the road heading east from the village - the utterly empty road heading east.

Reishun said something she would have yelled at Hikari for saying.

Them, kicking her horse into a gallop, she followed Amefuri into the darkness that had apparently swallowed the thirteen-year-old.

* * *

This time, he awoke to the sound of someone sobbing. It was nighttime. He knew without knowing how he knew, because the air in his cell had been cold even when he'd fallen. But the atmosphere underwent a subtle transition, and it smelt like it was night. It also smelt extremely dry, which meant he couldn't possibly have travelled east or south.

As he became aware of his body, he realised he was lying flat on his stomach on a cold floor. He made to push himself up and almost let out a cry of pain as the pain exploded in his arms. Biting down hard on his lip, he managed it, shocked by how much everything hurt. It was bearable, but he couldn't remember why he hurt as much. There was no blood and no open wounds, as far as he could tell, as though his body had been healed and patched up and tossed into... this space.

He looked around properly for the first time.

It was a cell. A prison cell, though by the looks of it, it was certainly not a cell in Kounan, for even at the pinnacle of Kounan's tyranny (a few years prior to Emperor Saihitei's birth), the cell would not have been this meagre and unornamented. Instead of bars, the cell had a hard metal door. There was nothing in the small room - not even straw, which was unpleasant, even if he was a monk and knew how to control his body's basic tendencies. The small light that crept into the cell came from a torch somewhere down the passageway, through a tiny window on the door.

Yet, the sounds of the sobbing were unmistakeable.

Chichiri stood, mastering the agony in his body by the pure force of his will. He walked from one end of the cell to the other, to realise that the sounds were coming from the cell on the right. Taking a deep breath, he took the plunge. "Hello?" he said.

The sobbing stopped immediately, great hitching breaths replacing that sound, as though someone in a great deal of pain was trying not to make any noise.

"Are- are you hurt?" Chichiri asked, in a gentler tone.

"N-no," said his fellow inmate, in a voice that sounded shaky from both age and distress. "Who are you?"

"... I am Houjun," said Chichiri, after a couple of minutes, unsure of why he'd not said 'Chichiri'. But somehow, not being able to sense the man's chi - or anything else, for that matter - made him cautious in a way Suzaku warriors were not meant to be. "What is your name?"

"My name is Jungney," he said, his voice breaking. "I think they're going to kill me."

He collapsed into heartwrenching sobs once more, and Chichiri could think of no way to really comfort him through the wall. Chichiri knew, and had reason to believe, that even the most grievous of human crimes came from human impulses. He sighed, placing both hands flat on the cell wall, trying to will his chi towards the man to give him some strength. But it didn't work, a sort of white haze over his life force. This was troubling, but for the moment, he pushed it out of his mind. This was the first interaction he'd had with another human being in many days...

Well, no. That wasn't right - he could remember something of a conversation, something important perhaps, but it slid out of his grasp, like an old dream or a waking vision...

Because this was disturbing, he pushed it out of his mind, blinking back tears of his own out of frustration and the horror of not knowing, concentrating instead on his cell. If he had to guess, they were somewhere in Sairou - something about the architecture reminded him of the old Byakko temple where Seiryuu had been summoned, although, in all honesty, the inside of a cell was hardly any measure. As he realised, in the next instant, that he could just confirm this with the man in the adjoining cell, he felt something that he rarely ever did - he felt stupid, as though the haze clogging his powers was also clogging his brain, which seemed sluggish, exhausted, and somehow trapped.

When the sobs subsided, a while later, Chichiri asked him, and felt mildly assured by the fact that even if his senses were foggy, he was at least not without his rationality when he was told they were in Arudo.

"What was your crime?" Chichiri asked, gently enough - unsure if he trusted the doomed man quite enough to ask him how long ago he had been brought in.

The man was silent for a while, before speaking in a voice that was only slightly sheepish, though he still sounded tearful - an odd tone, on the whole, for his deep voice. "I was caught selling ...something to the guards on this side of the river."

"Something," Chichiri stated, evenly.

"Something," confirmed Jungney. "I- it's not legal on this side of the river, but the guards will pay a hefty price for good... something."

It was slightly anticlimatic. Chichiri had been imagining a murder or an equally foul deed. Trafficking illegal substances seemed petty in comparison, even if it was better to be sharing a cell wall with a foolish criminal rather than a murderer. "Is it common practice in Arudo to hang illegal traders?" he asked, shaking his head.

"On this side of the river, yes."

"What about the other side of the river?"

"You're not from Arudo at all, are you?" demanded Jungney, sounding mildly impatient. "Or at least you haven't been here for the last ten years. They don't really care about the other side of the river, as long as we make sure we pay them on time. It's been that way since the big boss died an' left his stupid grandson in charge. He's turning eleven now - his royal highness - and until he comes of age, the wench is in charge."

Chichiri raised his eyebrows. It didn't matter how fuzzy his brain was - the total disregard for propriety reminded him fondly of his foul-mouthed, red-haired bandit friend.

"And yeah, it's not legal to tell the truth about the royal ^*^#)s either," added Jungney, as though reading the silence. He drew a small chuckle from Chichiri - and seemed to read that as a slight warming up of affairs (which was true), he spoke now in a curious tone. "Sooo... What are you here for?"

"I'm-" Chichiri cut himself off, the warmth and the smile disappearing entirely, closing his eyes. Though it was dark in his cell, he put his hands on his face, almost embarrassed by the display of emotion he was putting on for the empty room. "I- don't remember," he said, after a long time, rubbing his head, surprised. "Try as I might, I don't remember. "

* * *

Though the rain was pouring more fiercely now, something Reishun tried to think of purely as rain and nothing else, Amefuri said she could still see Hikari's horses' tracks. Reishun didn't argue with her, partly because she was still embarrassed, but mostly because worrying about Hikari was taking up all her energy at the moment. Trees did shield the road from the village, but they had only been arguing for a few minutes. How far could she have gone?

She didn't want to state the obvious, but it was drumming in her head. Somehow, in the moment or two she'd spent trying to clarify herself to a woman who didn't care to begin with, someone or something had got Hikari. She rubbed her hands over her face, biting her lip. Why had she needed to make that clarification anyway? It was so silly. She wasn't guilty and she didn't want to care about Amefuri's opinion of her, which was probably hitting an all time low at the moment.

The dark head bent over the tracks didn't turn to look at her, making her feel marginally worse, if that was possible. Stupid for having let Hikari ride off alone, completely moronic for having been so... girly, really, about one person's opinion. And completely lost and helpless, unable to really do anything about Hikari having gone missing.

Amefuri stopped suddenly, and looked up at her, though the expression on her face wasn't accusatory so much as it was flummoxed. Reishun slid off her horse and walked to her. "What is it?"

"They've just vanished here," said Amefuri, sounding surprised.

"You mean the rain washed them away?"

"No," replied the other woman, giving her a look, "I mean they've just vanished. See?" She pointed at mud that looked exactly like mud to Reishun. "Those tracks are still visible, and here," she pointed again to muddy mud, "they're just gone."

"They can't just be gone," said Reishun, controlling her voice so it didn't rise to squeaky levels. "It's not just a kid, it's a whole horse. And Nyan Nyan," she added, emphatically, as though to remind herself that Hikari wasn't alone. "Horses don't just vanish into thin air."

"Apparently they do," Amefuri pointed out, quite reasonably, still pointing to the squishy dirt that seemed to hold all the answers of the universe for her. "This one did."

"No, it didn't! Because that's just- it's just not possible! I mean she has to be here somewhere and- don't you turn away from me!" Reishun cried, considerably irrationally, before her companion lunged at her to knock her to same squishy earth, arrows zipping over the spots where they had been standing. "What the-"

"Shut up!" growled Amefuri, gritting her teeth and lookin at her with intense, incredible fury as though this was all her fault. It took Reishun a second to realise that this was because of the arrow sticking out of her shoulder. "For god's sake, just shut up!"

Reishun didn't argue, because it was a rational demand on the whole and because she didn't quite know how to argue with a woman bleeding all over her clothes. She just lay there, not moving through Amefuri's elbow dug into her ribs uncomfortably. In defeat, she looked at the incredibly angry, determined face that suddenly looked a lot younger, as the marauding band of bandits surrounded them and the swords came to rest on their throats.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Well... I hope this makes some sense. I suppose I've killed a surprise somewhere, or possibly made it more confusing. Chichiri's experiences will hopefully make a little more sense in the coming chapters, but if it's getting out of hand, please let me know. The review button is everyone's friend.

Also, wow, that was a heck of an interval. This is what one gets for having a man's brain, in that multitasking is totally out of the question. On a happy note, the exam is over, but on another note, other stuff is beginning to happen. This chapter... well, it's shorter and less polished than the ones before, but I wanted to get it out. It's been resting in my head for a long time and I got quite sick of it, so here it is. The next one may not be longer but it will hopefully be better, and be up in seven days.

Thanks for reading, everyone. And a special thanks to _Flashyfirebird, Daenerys Pendragon, _and my bunny wife for the reviews and the support!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**


	23. 22 The Giant Pink Floating Elephant

**Chapter Twenty-Two **

**A Giant Pink Floating Elephant**

* * *

The humans probably thought that it couldn't feel a thing. This was mostly because human beings could be remarkably stupid if they became too comfortable. They thought sheep were creatures of habit, but really, who did they think the sheep had learned this from? The book knew all of this but was losing its patience.

Really, clutching at it while it feels as though it is falling through space endlessly is really not helping anyone. If it wasn't for the fact that the book itself was kind of surprised and a little alarmed by the way things had turned out with the Suzaku no Miko, it would have probably attempted to shock its current holder out of it. It couldn't see - and that was not very nice. The book was meant to see, after all. What would it do if it couldn't see?

Being written, much like being born for human beings, had been like being put together through seemingly innocuous words that meant very little separately, but together could carry such power, such potential. When that writer, the one who had been meant to bring the book to the maidens, had written, he had not known, but he had placed a great deal of power within the book's folds. The book had never been held by a person like that, not until the last few hours - but because it could not see, it did not know what happened presently.

It knew other things. It knew that somewhere in the world, where the four gods maintained a balance, a large mirror reflected nothing but the same emptiness that the book itself felt. It knew why it could not see - but this didn't help it either, because if it could not s ee, it could not tell the Bearers of the Book what was happening. Or anything else, really - it was quite annoying.

And the idiot clutching at it...

* * *

"Ow!" Tetsuya yelped, dropping the book as it snapped shut on his fingers and jumping back from it as though singed. "What on earth?"

"Are you alright, Tetsuya?" asked Yui, walking in and peering at the three men. Only Nakago did not peer back suspiciously, as though waiting for her to explode any second, which was why she looked at him instead of the other two. Tetsuya wasn't quite done shrugging ineffectually, when she pressed on. "You need to pick Jun up from school."

She didn't look at him, but knew he was staring at her somewhat incredulously. She must have sounded dismissive, but really, this was hardly the time to explain herself to Tetsuya. The fact was school would be out soon and they needed to get Jun back.

"Fine," he said, finally, in a slightly strained voice. "But do you really want him to come back here?"

"Maybe we should go to my house," suggested Keisuke. "All of us, that is. Or, you know, you could send Jun to my house instead, since your house is a bit of a mess." He looked at Tetsuya, who was looking instead at his wife. Yui didn't respond, looking steadily at Nakago instead. He stared back, as though unmoved by her. Keisuke felt mildly invisible. "For god's sake."

"Could you guys check on Hanako and the kitchen-wrecking ancient Chinese woman, please? I'll sit with the book."

"You mean you'll sit with Nakago," muttered Tetsuya, shaking his head.

Yui looked at him, her face unreadable. "Would you rather he follow you to the bedroom?"

There was only one very easy answer to this. If Tetsuya found it uncomfortable to have Nakago sit under their family photographs, then it would be downright unholy to have him waltz through the bedroom. Of course, he would not waltz. He would walk deliberately through the walls while the rest of them common mortals had to trudge up the stairs to the bedroom. Because it made him feel mildly better to do so, Tetsuya allowed his imagination to venture down unheard of pastures where Nakago did waltz. It was with a slightly smug, but mostly resigned sort of look, that he dragged Keisuke along and left his wife with her former tormentor. Yui frowned only very slightly, as she heard fading mutters of 'dancing' and 'Seishi' and 'duck'. As the front door closed, she sighed, and turned to look at Nakago.

* * *

"Get up!"

Before either of then could move to follow, they'd been dragged up by the scruffs of their neck. The blades came back to rest of their throats the second they were up, though it wasn't really necessary. They were surrounded, though not by soldiers. It looked like a small and particularly filthy band of petty bandits, all of them foul, smelly man who looked at her as though she was a particularly appetising morsel of food.

Reishun resisted the urge to shudder, and raised her chin instead, looking much like the daughter of a rich merchant faced with bad merchandise. Beside her, Amefuri was silent, though Reishun could feel her vibrating with silent anger. Or perhaps it was pain from her wound. It occured to Reishun, as it hadn't when she'd been knocked to the ground and told to shut up, that she'd saved her. The woman had fair reason to be pissed off, even if it wouldn't do either of them any good at the moment.

"Well well well," said a sallow skinned, tall man, stepping forward. Reishun knew without knowing how she did that this was the leader of this little faction, even though he looked exactly as ragged and filthy as the rest of them. Something about him alarmed her more than the others. As she discovered, in the next instant, it was not his superior rhetoric. "This is our lucky day, boys - we've got our entertainment and supplies right here."

As he spoke, a beefy bandit brought him their bags. Reishun's was ripped open first, with much hooting over her fine cloak. The weapons crashed to the ground next, as the beefy bandit turned Amefuri's bag upside down, next to the neatly wrapped food and medicines that had fallen from Reishun's bags. Reishun didn't quite know whether to be afraid or to roll her eyes at this display. A part of her was worried, but she knew most of that was for Hikari. She was almost certain they could get out of this, given the right moment and leverage. As the sallow skinned leader turned to her with a particularly hungry gaze, she found her confidence turning into determination.

"Kill the boy!" ordered the leader, making Reishun blink, before she realised what he meant.

"No!" she cried, not quite registering the clichy, turning in a panic to look at Amefuri, catching a glimpse of a cool, unruffled expression, which somehow made her panic even more. "No, she's not a boy!"

Everyone turned to look at her, including the Byakko seishi. Then, as one, the bandits turned to look at the other woman with the foul, hungry gazes that they'd directed only at Reishun before that, though she looked only at Reishun. The calm, even and somewhat deadly expression gave way, just a little - but Reishun wouldn't forget the brief glimpse of panic in her eyes before they dragged her up and shoved her against the tree. They had used the wounded shoulder as leverage, extracting an animalistic yelp from the woman. This was proof enough, for there was enough of a pitch in her voice to indicate her gender. But the beefy man who'd been handling their bags stepped forward, pushing against her to check.

"STOP!" yelled Reishun, too horrified to think.

"That's enough Bolin!" the leader called, and though there was no rational reason for a big man like Bolin to listen to him, he stepped away, grinning in a manner that made Reishun's skin crawl. She looked at Amefuri, but the woman didn't look back. The panic was gone now, but so was everything else. She was looking at the ground. "That's dessert. You don't want to ruin everyone's fun, do you?"

"Guess not," said the man, still grinning stupidly.

"Tie them up, now," ordered the man, and Reishun found herself being dragged to Amefuri. The leader stood and watched, his expression almost as calm as Amefuri's, and Reishun looked at him furiously as they were bound together by the wrists, with a rope long enough for Bolin to lead them along, like cattle. The swords came back to press against their backs. Reishun didn't dare look at her companion.

"Let's walk," said the leader, his voice slithering over Reishun.

Helplessly, they began to walk.

* * *

Though the branch didn't collide with her forehead very hard, it was enough to have her fall off her horse and hit the back of her head on an inconveniently located rock. Then she saw stars, bright spots of flickering lights that bobbed before her eyes, one red orb larger than the rest.

"Kowaiineechan okay?"

Hikari stared, dazed, and found herself inexplicably awkward. Perhaps her senses were confused from having her head knocked on the rock or something, because there was no reason to be awkward. People who hit their heads on rocks were not awkward, they were in pain and sometimes concussed. The brighter red orb popped into a small human girl form, peering at Hikari with enormous eyes. "Um," began Hikari, clearing her throat, "ow."

"Kowaiineechan good!"

"Um," said Hikari again, making to get up. This concluded with a third knock to her head, this time against Nyan Nyan's head, which seemed to cut through her awkwardness somewhat. "Owww.."

Nyan Nyan put both her hands on the sides of Hikari's head, making Hikari blink in surprise. "Kowaiineechan okay," she said, firmly.

"Yeah, yeah," said Hikari, rubbing the back of her head and turning away from Nyan Nyan to look around.

She knew immediately that something was wrong, though it took her a moment to work out how she knew this, other than the fact that a branch had burst out of nowhere to whack her on the head. They were in a small clearing, large thick trees all around them, and by the sense of it, forest for miles on either side. The horse stood a few yards away from them, looking placid but confused (in an equine sort of way). But for a single sliver of light that had manuevered its way through, the afternoon sun didn't quite make its way to the floor of the forest here; the overhanging branches of the trees and the thick foliage blocked most of it out. But everything here wasn't grey or wet, like everything had been for the last few days. The sun was out, even if it was still cool and Hikari could hardly see any sunshine. And it wasn't raining.

Hikari frowned.

What had happened? One moment she'd been riding her horse to get away from the ancient Chinese version of Pinky and the Brain, along a clear road with no overhanging branches, and the next she was here, in the middle of a forest by the looks of it, nursing three fairly solid bumps on her head. She remembered nothing odd, other than a small tug. A small, familiar sort of tug, that squeezed her into a tiny space of motion and brought her here... Eyes widening as things fell into place, she turned to look at the tiny girl, standing in the clearing and looking at her slightly apprehensively.

"You did this," said Hikari, narrowing her eyes at the tiny girl.

"Kowaiineechan safe here," she said, her lips wobbling just a little, though this earned no sympathy from Hikari.

Hikari glowered incredulously. "What do you mean? Where are Reishun and the grouch?"

Her lower lip was now wobbling dangerously. "Kowaiineechan safe here!"

Understanding, having dawned a few moments back, now took on the character of a cruel afternoon sun that one couldn't get away from. "Nyan Nyan, take me back!" demanded Hikari, lunging to grab the girl. But Nyan Nyan floated out of her way so Hikari fell, face first onto the ground next to the rock. Or a different rock, for Nyan Nyan had not been standing where Hikari had fallen before - except of course it looked much like the other rock. "Argh!" snapped Hikari, frustrated with rocks. Who cared about rocks? "Come back here! We're not finished!"

"Kowaiineechan need be here!"

"I don't care! I don't care where I need to be, we need to go back and get them!"

"Can't!"

"WHY NOT!"

"BECAUSE KOWAIINEECHAN NOT SAFE THERE!"

"WHAT ABOUT THEM? ARE THEY SAFE THERE!" She could practically feel the smoke coming out of her ears. Hikari gritted her teeth and tried to reason with herself.

Yelling wasn't fixing anything. It was satisfying, but on the whole, it added to her multiple headaches. She looked at the girl hovering a few feet from her, tears streaming down her cheeks, and took a deep breath. It had never taken as much effort for her to be rational, but she forced herself to consider that Nyan Nyan perhaps had reasons for her absolutely idiotic and horrible behaviour. Perhaps there was good reason to leave their companions behind, one that she needed to be talked out of, of course. Hikari couldn't do that by yelling.

With another deep, steadying breath, struggling to keep her voice under control, she pressed Nyan Nyan. "Don't you care about what happens to them? Don't you care about Reishun?"

This was, as it turned out, the worst thing she could have said. Hikari cringed as Nyan Nyan burst into tears, noisy and terribly unhappy tears. The girl had magical tear-ducts. That was her special power, and Hikari was sure of it. There was no way one person could produce so many tears in such a short duration, it simply didn't make sense. Hikari sighed, putting her hands on her hips, and then hissing against the pain in her wounds, clenching her fists.

She had to struggle with herself to unclench her fists, and to not cry out in frustration as the pain throbbed on, subsiding very, very slowly, as Nyan Nyan's sobs grew louder and more desperate. It was like listening to a child cry, with excessive abandon, and though Hikari was certainly not the one who had abandoned her friends in a place that was, apparently, unsafe, she felt cruel and mean.

With a great sigh, she made a feeble attempt at comforting Nyan Nyan. "Don't cry," she said, though it sounded more like instruction than comfort. Hikari tried again. "Nyan Nyan?" The girl, crouched against a tree now, looked up with her large bright eyes. Hikari looked at her evenly, trying to be the adult who told the kid what to do, in calm, unequivocal and rational tones. But she couldn't hide the quiver in her voice as she said, "We have to go back."

Nyan Nyan shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Nyan Nyan, please, we need to go back. We have to travel together. We're not going to just... stay here and let them fight the ... whatever it is."

"No, that forest not safe anymore!"

"So we need to get back to them!"

"They find THEM."

"Who is 'they'! And that's all the more reason to-"

Nyan Nyan shook her head. "Kowaiineechan safe. Nyan Nyan must keep Kowaiineechan safe."

It was galling. She had been travelling in an unknown world for close to ten days now, faced unbelievable dangers and nearly had her hands chopped off, but she had never felt this desperate. The idea of 'danger' was not as surreal anymore. Hikari didn't make a production out of not thinking about what could happen. She knew what could happen, she'd felt the warm blood from a dying soldier fall on her, and even if her memories of the rest of that day were fuzzy, she remembered that clearly enough, just as clearly as she did Reishun's screams the night they'd met the black-eyed commander. So she didn't fool herself into believing it was less dangerous or less terrifying. But this, this safety was more chilling, more petrifying than anything they could have faced.

So that was fine. She knew that. She wouldn't lie to herself like adults so often did to make themselves feel better. And since she knew, she told herself, she could handle it. The shaking was a side-effect of having fallen off the horse and the pain, and that was all.

Ignoring the horror and desperation rising like bile in her throat, she walked carefully towards Nyan Nyan, not wanting to scare her into floating up the tree or something. The girl seemed frozen by her tears and by Hikari's accusations. Though there was no reason to doubt herself or to be less angry, "You can protect them too - you can go and get them, and I won't leave, I'll stay right here, and then we can't go on together," she said, knowing her voice was edging towards the plaintive.

But Nyan Nyan was unrelenting. She didn't move, not even when Hikari's knees touched her feet and the girl slumped down before her; she only shook her head. "Can't leave Kowaiineechan."

"I promise I won't go anywhere, Nyan Nyan, we're not- we can't just-"

"Nyan Nyan sorry, Kowaiineechan. Nyan Nyan can't leave Kowaiineechan."

Hikari stared at her, and though she was still crying, she stared back. And though Hikari had often wanted her to be more assertive and stop being such a baby, she found that in the face of this, she didn't know what to do. She wanted to explode with rage and anger, but as it transpired, she hadn't the slightest notion of how to do that. So she sat there, breathing somewhat unevenly and shaking in fury and anger. It was when the first hot tear began to burn in the back of her eyelids that she stood up.

"Fine!" she declared, and it was not nearly as impressive as it would have been if she hadn't been close to bursting into tears herself. "Fine. I'll leave you!"

She turned and stormed off, heading in the direction opposite to where she assumed her horse had ridden off to. There was no reason for this, other than an irrational belief that the horse had been running away from where Reishun and Amefuri were, and so if she walked in the opposite direction, she would get back to them. Of course, this was assuming they were in the same forest as the road, the same direction, the same country... Hikari pushed that out of her mind as blindly as she pushed branches and shrubs out of her path, trying not to cry out loudly in pain at the pressure on her wounds, and out of frustration at the whole stupid, horrible state of affairs.

It took her several minutes of immense effort to push through into a small clearing about thirteen feet from the clearing. As she broke out of a particularly stubborn clump of bushes, something tripped her up and she fell, face first, to the ground. This time she did scream, but it didn't matter. The only person listening was the one who really wasn't, floating right behind her. Then, though she leave this part out of any recounting of this tale at a later date, she cried, sounding, even to herself, not unlike Nyan Nyan.

"Kowaiineechan calm down please-"

"Why are you doing this!" yelled Hikari, as though the yelling would distract anyone in the vicinity from the fact that she was crying like a frustrated child pleading with an unrelenting parent. She was trapped. Nyan Nyan had picked her spot in the forest very well, the shrubs and thorny bushes so overgrown and thick that they may as well have been iron fencing. She couldn't do it. Already her arms were warm and wet, and she knew the wounds were opening up, and though she didn't care for that, the pain was paralysing. "I don't understand why you're doing this!"

"Nyan Nyan has to do what Taiitsukun says!"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT TAIITSUKUN SAYS!" hollered Hikari, wishing she could get up and move. But her knees hurt now in addition to everything else. It was all she could do to lie there and be helpless, altogether a very humiliating experience. It took another minute for her to stop crying, and then another, until she realised what Nyan Nyan had said.

She raised her head carefully and looked at Nyan Nyan, who was sitting cross-legged next to her head. "What do you mean what Taiitsukun says?"

* * *

Reishun thought the worry would kill her. Then, because she couldn't stop herself from thinking, she wondered if this would indeed be a better end than whatever the bandits had planned for them. Admittedly, for the moment they seemed to have lost interest in the two women entirely; they had bound them to a tree quite a while ago, and since then proceeded to fry fish and drink very strong sake (by the smell of it) with great enthusiasm. Reishun remembered how the leader had said they were 'dessert', and her stomach turned at the thought. She felt sick, though she wasn't sure if this was from what was happening to them or what she feared might have happened to Hikari.

Petty bandits, really. It had seemed absurd, manageable, surely, for two Seishi. There was certainly a ring of irony to it; they had been so preoccupied for dark, evil, supernatural forces that they'd discounted the possibility of smaller, but equally dire human forces. This was not how adventures were supposed to be, Reishun thought, feeling something she hardly ever felt: helpless, and just a little stupid. Now that she was tied to a tree and Amefuri wasn't in any immediate danger, a lot of things were becoming clearer to the Suzaku seishi.

Most importantly, it was clear that if she hadn't lost her head entirely, she could have fought the whole lot of them and they wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

She snuck a look at Amefuri, who was watching the scene around the fire steadily, her face lacking expression in a manner that was far from 'calm'. Reishun didn't know what to say. The idea of offering comfort seemed laughable, and in a way, comfort would have been insulting. Offering empathy would have been even more patronising, because Reishun had never had to experience vulnerability of that nature. She was too strong to be manhandled like that. She couldn't know what it would be like to be held down by four men about twice her size and then ... and then pressed against in so crudely intimate a manner. The anxiety in Amefuri's eyes had been entirely alien to her, somehow all the more horrifying because of the normally bland, excessively guarded manner of the Byakko seishi.

"I'm sorry," she said, after a long while, and looked away. "I wasn't thinking. I could have stopped them and we wouldn't have been in this mess."

Though the young woman by her said nothing, and did not turn, Reishun was aware that she was listening. It wasn't entirely clear if she'd take Reishun's head off for the apology.

Reishun watched the raucous bandits around the fire. They'd laid down their arms, the heavy weaponry that she had been too overconfident or panicked to notice before. They carried blades of all kinds, axes, swords, spears and knives. Amefuri's own sword - far more finely crafted and superior - lay gleaming in the fire next to the leader, who sat mostly still, a self-assured smirk on his face.

"I mean," said the Suzaku seishi, talking partly to fight down mingled anger and horror, "you were right, before... at the bridge, I mean. I'm not used to fighting. I don't have a fighting style, or anything. I just - I guess I panicked and-"

Amefuri shifted against her and she cut herself off, aware that her apology was turning into babble. Sounds of something cacophonous and non-musical drifted towards them as some of the bandits burst into a particularly unique rendition of a questionable drinking song, and Reishun found herself annoyed and even more worried. These were petty, horrible people, and it was galling that two seishi had been overcome in this manner. Yet, they had been overcome and it was unsettling; the fact that the rain was slowing down, and had been growing softer since her companion had been struck in the shoulder, didn't help either. She couldn't tell, through the drizzle, whether the wetness on her own shoulder came from the skies or her companion's wound.

"Are you alright?" she asked, finally looking at her.

Several minutes passed, or so it seemed to Reishun, in which the Byakko seishi proceeded to glare intensely at what appeared to be a twig on the ground. Reishun took the opportunity to wonder why it was that every sentence that passed between them was frought with conversational horror. Especially because she was not prone to being socially awkward. She was the master of easy laughter, skilled by way of comfortable conversation and no amount of blabbering or sulkiness ever put her off. Now here she was, unsettled by the prolonged silence. Admittedly, she was unsettled for a large number of reasons, but having Amefuri around was, on a purely social level, very unhelpful. Everything the woman said felt crude and insulting, and Reishun had found herself more on edge around her than ever before, perhaps because she was, in many ways, terrified to see her through the Byakko seishi's eyes. There was a stray, intensely neurotic bone in her body somewhere that the Byakko seishi seemed to tickle.

Finally, the Byakko seishi straightened slightly, and tilted her head towards Reishun. "Usually I can get out of knots," she said, in an even sort of one, "but there's a hole in my shoulder."

Then, though Reishun waited for some kind of indication of whether this was an insult or some manner of response, she stopped speaking.

Huh, thought Reishun, and sighed, wishing she could rub her head as a fruitless gesture that served no purpose other than to make one feel more tangible in a weird situation. Perhaps this was some kind of attempt to communicate; sort of like the conversations her father sometimes had with heavily accented traders from the north, in which neither party had a clue what the other spoke of.

The other girl presently shifted against her, drawing in a huge breath and still not looking at her, as though steeling herself to do something unpleasant. "I... will you be able to break out of the ropes?" she asked, sounding irritable.

And Reishun suddenly understood undesirable subtext. She needed help. Well, of course she needed help, she had a damned arrow sticking out of her shoulder. Reishun didn't quite know whether to be amused or frustrated, but as the woman next to her turned to look at her skeptically, she found herself confronted with an oddly not unpleasant sentiment. Despite the dire situation and the slightly odd conversational blip, for the first time there was something other than irritation on Amefuri's face. It wasn't friendly, but it wasn't exactly unfriendly - edging towards insecure, at that - and that was something, even if it was unnecessarily confusing.

Reishun cleared her throat, and considered the rope. "Probably," she nodded, and had the unique experience of watching the Byakko seishi look more settled. Not that Reishun didn't know, theoretically, that the girl was unsettled by things, but to see her affected was certainly odd. Her face altered with the emotion and the scars and premature lines that usually made her look older had the opposite effect now. In any other situation, Reishun would have paused to inform her that she looked much prettier this way.

It lasted about as long as the brief flash of horror on her face before, and then was replaced by the casual blandness that she had adopted since their capture. "They're very drunk, so it won't take long."

Now Reishun was flummoxed. "What are you talking about?" she asked, but as Amefuri continued to look at her blandly, she raised an eyebrow. "We're not going to fight them."

"Are you scared?" asked the other woman, almost sincerely.

"I'm not stupid," retorted Reishun, frowning.

The Byakko seishi shook her head. Something around her eyes tightened just a little, but other than that, she was remarkably calm. "I won't run."

Reishun stared at her, and found that she could believe her, not just her words but the cold intent on her face. "They're petty bandits."

"No," said the girl, flatly. "They're rapists and murderers and thieves who've stolen all that food and drink from innocent villagers-"

"And we're two people."

"We're two seishi."

"We're one and a half, at that, because there's a hole one of us."

"I can fight!"

"You can't get out of the ropes!" snapped Reishun, somewhat unfairly. She regretted it - though she wanted nothing more than to be extremely annoyed, and damn it, she had reason - in the next instant, as Amefuri's face altered to seem oddly betrayed. Argh! thought Reishun, even more frustrated now. Not only were they stuck in a forest with their young friend - and apparently the hope of the universe - missing, but they had to now deal with what appeared to be a fixated adolescent ego. As Amefuri turned away to glower at the bandits, Reishun concentrated on taking three deep breaths to control the desire to knock the girl on the head and drag her to safety. "Why can't we just leave?" she asked, struggling to speak in a gentler tone. "We need to find Hikari."

"Nyan Nyan is with her," Amefuri pointed out, in a reasonable sort of way. Reishun blinked, a ridiculous wave of nearly unwanted relief washing over her. How had she lost her head so much? Nyan Nyan had protected them before. In fact, if anyone could protect Hikari, it was probably her. Reishun struggled not to be relieved, because being relieved made her want to hug Amefuri rather than be the severe sensible adult who kept the illogical and strange woman with a hole in her shoulder from fighting an entire band of bandits. "She will keep her safe."

"Even if that is true, we don't have the time to ... to attack people just because you're a-"

"Oh for god's sake." The Byakko seishi looked steadily away from her, looking as though she was struggling with her temper as well. "Can't you see why they follow him?"

Reishun blinked. "What?"

"Why they follow that man they call their leader - can't you see it?" She was looking directly at him, her eyes steadily placed on something about his person that Reishun couldn't see at all. Then, he raised his head to look at one of his larger companions as he stood, and she saw it, around his neck, a rope, or something coiled around his throat that she had previously hadn't considered.

"I don't understand," she said, with a deep, unsettled sense that she was not going to like where this was going.

"That thing around his neck is not a rope."

"It looks like... well, it looks like a snake-"

"Exactly!" When Reishun looked confused, she gritted her teeth. "Don't you get it? The thing around his neck- Did you sense them creeping up on us? I didn't even hear them. How did they do that, if they're just petty bandits!"

Reishun frowned. She frowned with as much intensity as she could muster, attempting to summon the Reasonable Parent facade, because Amefuri had the Psychotic Child face on and everything was tilting in a way she really Did Not Like. "Maybe they were very quiet," Reishun pointed out, before realising that this would have been a reasonable argument when the quiet, sneaky men in question weren't conducting what appeared to be a symphonic rendition of several drinking songs all at once. She sighed again.

It was eerily familiar, now that she thought about it, to the sense of muted power that had followed them from Oda's village. She thought of the Shenwu's story and Hikari's narration of her absurd dream in Eiyou. Perhaps, the Shenwu had told her, this fragment does not take a human form. Over the centuries artists and storytellers have turned her into a nine-headed serpent. And there was indeed a snake around the man's neck.

Of course it added up, now that it had been pointed out.

"Do you think the snake is controlling the man?" she demanded, flatly, wondering if it sounded just ridiculous to the Byakko seishi.

Amefuri narrowed her eyes. "Miao Jian says that the greatest enemy of the Black Bear is the Serpent."

Reishun shook her head, closing her eyes, not sure she believed her at all. In fact, she suspected this was an excuse to attack twenty men who were all too drunk to notice them sneaking off now. On the other hand, she had to admit, if there was ever a time to attack twenty odd men, it was when they were too drunk to make particular sense of their surrundings - when they were so clearly unsuspcting of an attack.

With a deep sigh, she turned to look at her, only to find the accusation she had imagined on her face, and though she didn't want to be so, she found herself ashamed. It wasn't as though the woman was particularly sensitive, but she was prone to being uncannily insightful sometimes, and it was terribly unsettling - as well as entirely illogical, given that she, Reishun, was the one who wanted to avoid bloodshed to begin with. Amefuri didn't bat an eyelid, keeping her steadily at the receiving end of the glare. "You think I only want to kill them." Her expression was nearly as unreadable as her flat, even voice.

Reishun shook her head. "I think you're angry," she said, finally, shaking her head. She knew well enough it was at least halfway related to how they'd handled her - and for this she couldn't blame the woman.

The woman tilted her head to her side, quirking her eyebrow just a little. The momentary absense of the barricade between her and Reishun was back up, as though the Suzaku warrior had somehow crossed an invisible line of some kind, dared to venture into a territory that she, Amefuri, had not given her express permission to. It was galling. Indeed, it should have been infuriating. But it was only oddly embarrassing. Somewhere in between them hung the truth that Reishun only had the slightest inkling of, and she was embarrassed for not having paid attention. "I'm not a murderer," said the woman, finally, so coldly that Reishun actually had to suppress a shiver. Glowering, she settled back against the tree.

An eternity of silence passed between them. Then, as she realised she hadn't a choice, a great sense of foreboding fell on Reishun, settling in as though making itself very comfortable. "I hope you know what you're doing," she muttered, finally, closing her eyes on concentrate on the ropes.

It didn't take too much effort; indeed, Reishun had never quite needed to exert herself too much physically. The rope was weak (and she was quite strong), and snapped as she yanked her arms forwards. She turned, but the other woman was already on her feet, walking towards a suitable branch on the ground.

"Hey, hold on, don't we need a-" Plan, Reishun finished mentally, as the Byakko seishi stalked off towards the band of men. Cursing stupid crazy bloodthirsty Byakko seishi in general, Reishun followed, pushing her sleeves back as she did so.

For some reason, Reishun had assumed there was a sophisticated battle plan brewing in the woman's mind. Perhaps it was the precsion of most of her manuevers, the very measured manner in which she usually moved. Or perhaps a small but not insignificant part of Reishun believed in heroes and awesome adventures. There was a hero, who was polite to the woman he rescued (and never accused her of being 'slow' and 'stupid' and 'graceless'), and a boy, and most importantly, he always had a worthy, cleverly wrought plan.

Amefuri walked up to the largest of the bandits, the one called Bolin, and hit him on the head with the branch. As he keeled over, she hit the bandit next to him and managed to get in a healthy blow to a third before anyone - including Reishun - could catch up with what was going on, and even then, she had enough time to extract Bolin's sword before anyone else drew theirs towards her.

Reishun cringed, though whether it was for the wound in Amefuri's shoulder or for the sound blows she was still delivering to the men, she wasn't quite sure; though she could hardly feel friendly towards the bandits at this point, something very basic and over-compassionate in her was sympathetic. This changed, of course, the moment they noticed her. There was a significant amount of yelling, that preceded a formless attack as well thought-out as Reishun's own strategy of 'hitting very hard'. She did proceeded to do just this, and in her case, this was sufficient. There was more yelling, not acoustically distinct from the yells of anger, as drunken men collided with one another, trees, and in one unfortunate fellow's case, what appeared to be a very large pot.

It was galling that these terribly untrained, extremely drunken and uncouth men had overpowered them before; it had to be admitted that even armed, these men did not present a challenge. It was relieving to punch them, though she would not admit this to her fellow seishi. As she did, she felt her confidence return to her, the horrible stress from feeling terribly trapped leave. There was more than one kind of merit in not running, as it turned out.

The clang of metal in the vicinity told her that Amefuri was battling someone presumably less drunk. Reishun made to turn towards her, but stopped halfway, and nearly screamed in horror.

For standing a few feet away from the minor battle a pale faced man, with a snake coiled around his neck, watching them comfortably. It took her a moment to realise this was the leader, a moment in which the exhiliaration drained from her with an alarming suddenness, the warm thrill of the fight turning frigid. A yell from behind her made her turn again, to realise that two men with axes were now bearing down on the Byakko seishi. There was a sickening sound of a metal slicing through flesh, followed by a man's yell. As Reishun stepped towards them, one of the men fell, and the other's axe embedded itself in the tree behind Amefuri. Reishun gripped the man by the scruff of his neck, and threw him bodily across the clearing.

There was a brief moment of confused silence, in which Reishun turned to look at Amefuri. There was more blood on her, though Reishun could not tell where it had come from. Before she could ask, Amefuri pulled her sword out of the fallen man and threw it like a throwing knife at her.

Reishun yelped, jumping out of the way. "OY!" she yelled, furiously. "What the-"

But the Byakko seishi was pointing wordlessly at something behind her. Understanding dawned, and Reishun turned to find the leader lying face first on the ground, the sword sticking out of the back of his neck.

"Oh god," said Reishun, putting a hand to her mouth as the blood started to pool around his head. It was with some effort that she walked to him - to the corpse - as all the while blood spilled from him, soaking the ground around him. The sword had pierced him cleanly through the back of his neck, a neat kill with a surprisingly messy outcome. Swallowing, because she knew Amefuri was too weak to do much more, and because she knew that she'd had it easy in this battle, she gripped the sword by the hilt and yanked it out. Then, as the blood spurted out, she stumbled back, turning away from the sight of it.

It was quiet now, almost eerily so in the wake of the indistinct and persistent noise. Men lay about, flung all over the place; some were bleeding, but other than that, they may as well have passed out from drinking too much. None were conscious, other than Reishun, the Byakko seishi, and the single conscious bandit in the pot (but he sat as still as he possibly could and pretended almost successfully to be elsewhere).

The only sounds came from the fire that crackled in the center of the small clearing, and the small scuffling sounds that Amefuri made as she stood, unsteadily. She was a sight; blood glistened on her clothes against the light from the fire. Reishun knew most of the blood on her clothes was her own, and though she couldn't make out, she knew there was a fresh wound. But the warrior ignored her concerned look, walking unevenly to where her own finely crafted sword lay.

"Turn him over," she said, quietly, as she bent to pick up her blade.

Reishun cringed again, but steeled herself for it, turning. The human body had no business holding so much blood, she thought, rather unreasonably, as she bent to turn the man over. Though she tried not to scream in an embarrassingly girly manner, she did. She jerked backwards in an instinctive move to get away from the grisly sight of his mutilated throat. As she lost her balance and landed with a bump on the ground, the Byakko seishi walked up, covered in blood herself and oddly a thousand times more collected than Reishun. As Reishun watched, she bent to peer at his throat, move the fabric of his shirt and - to Reishun's horror - reach in to extract a small, lifeless snake, covered in the man's blood.

"That's... disgusting," said Reishun, fervently. She didn't mention that it didn't add up, that the tiny snake couldn't possibly be one of the nine forms the Shenwu had spoken of, because Amefuri looked especially pale. It struck Reishun that it was no longer raining. "Maybe you should sit," she said, watching the woman as she stood up, tossing the dead snake towards the fire. It landed several feet short, and Reishun stood too, slightly alarmed by the lack of colour on the woman's face. "Oi, you're going to-"

"I'm fine," interjected the Byakko warrior, giving her one last glare. Then, she took one wobbly step back, and, to Reishun's total lack of surprise, fainted.

* * *

"We're alone now, Miko-sama. You can get it off your chest now."

Yui raised an eyebrow, and then shook her head. "Sorry, no. I'm not here to confess some terrible dark secret to you that you can then use against me."

"But I have nothing to use it for," he pointed out, his blue eyes gleaming in the light that shimmered in through the window. But then, he had always been extremely beautiful - exotic, in a way that was only enhanced by his being a spirit now. Yui didn't understand how he could exist, be so beautiful and so cruel at the same time. It seemed like a terrible paradox someone had conceived of in a long forgotten dream, except that he wandered like the remnants of a nightmare one couldn't forget. He smiled now, slowly. "You know how good of a listener I can be... Yui-sama."

He did not look particularly bothered by the developments, but that was indeed asking too much. It was strange to have him sit there, under photographs that showed a steady progress in her own life, testament to her growing older (even if the lines of age were only slightly beginning to touch her mouth now, while he looked exactly as he had when she'd last seen him. But that was because he was dead, wasn't it? Was it wrong to envy a dead man his good looks?

Yui cleared her throat. She wasn't fifteen anymore and the paradoxical nature of him was not so much of a bother. There was something about having grown out of one's hormones that somehow made it a lot easier to think, and Yui was very clear about what she wanted now.

"Tell me there is a way."

Nakago smirked. "There are several ways," he began, but she cut him off, knowing that he would use the vagueness in her question as a weapon. It occured to Yui that perhaps he did so only out of habit. It could certainly not have been easy for him to be helpful and actually assist in the preservation of the two worlds.

It did not occur to Keisuke - who was doing what any sensible big brother would do, i.e. eavesdropping - that it might have been difficult for Nakago. He simply believed as he always had, with a much superior clarity of conscience, that Nakago was an ass. Much later, when it was altogether too late to do anything about it, he would realise that his extreme caution had made no real difference to either Yui or Nakago, only partly because his shoe was sticking out of the door frame.

"Tell me there is a way to bring them back," said Yui, flatly.

Nakago said nothing for a long while, studying her intently. Yui stared back, just as steadily. There would be no backing down, she decided, not quite aware that she was doing exactly what she had mentally accused Nakago of doing - of seeing everything as a strategic act in a battle. Of course, this was Nakago and it stood to reason that when he said 'good morning' he was really playing a vile mental game of some kind. But the paranoia was really her own doing. "Tell me," she emphasised, as his silence stretched out.

Nakago inclined his head just a little. "I cannot tell you that," he said, finally.

There was a silence in the room after this pronouncement, a silence in which Keisuke's shoe withdrew from the frame as he clamped his mouth shut and leaned against the wall weakly, the horrible weight of the Seiryuu seishi's horrible words crashing on him. But then-

"You're lying," snapped Yui.

"Am I?"

"You are. You have to be! Why are you here anyway, Nakago? If it's the earring, just take it and leave!"

"I cannot take it and leave, as you so simplistically put it - I have been sent and the way back is now closed-"

"You're lying," repeated Yui, sharply, glaring at him as though this would make him take his words back.

Nakago smirked. "I have no reason to lie," he said, sounding infuriatingly cavalier.

Yui narrowed her eyes. "Don't shield yourself behind technicalities-"

"And what would I be shielding myself from?" If Keisuke had ever believed the word 'breezy' could be associated with Nakago, he would have ascribed it to his voice now. "From you? The fool you call your husband? There are more terrifying things in the world than an angry housewife-"

"I'm not a housewife," stated Yui, flatly.

"Interesting choice," said Nakago, now sounding almost amused. "Of all I have said, it is this you choose to correct."

The subtext hung in the room (and outside) like a giant floating pink elephant. Keisuke willed Yui to respond, willed for her to say anything to break the silence, to be stronger than the insane former megalomaniac (who now seemed hell bent on playing the evil mother-in-law in a cheesy soap) - but she didn't. A soft sound told him she had sat down, and he sighed. He wanted her to say something. If nothing else, he wanted her to comment on the horrid implication of the way back being closed; if the gateway was closed, then not only were his family not coming back, but also, no less terribly, Nakago was stuck here.

Ew, thought Keisuke, feeling quite ill, putting his hand to his forehead.

"You're changing the subject," she said, presently, and Keisuke noted with some approval that she didn't sound entirely defeated.

"You're asking the wrong questions."

"I- Nakago, tell me the truth."

"I have told you nothing but the truth, Miko."

"There HAS to be a way to bring them back!"

"There is no such thing as 'has to be', Yui-sama, you of all people should know that."

"But you're here. You're here to protect the Shinzaho of Seiryuu - if you're here then there has to be something to protect it from, which means the barriers between the worlds has to be open!"

"It is closing," Nakago stated with a kind of . With every passing minute that the book remains in shadow, the barrier will become more and more narrow. The book is old. The prophecies in the book have passed and the book is weak now."

"But the Shinzaho-"

"I was sent to protect it, it is true. But if the book is destroyed, then it will make no difference. In short, Miko, this is not my grand scheme - obviously, considering so many things are going wrong," he added, with, to his credit, only a touch of asperity. "I am an instrument of the gods. As always." He paused for a few moments, as Yui stared at him, her expression growing more grey by the second. "The Shinzaho belong in the book, all of them. And ... theoretically, the Shinzaho of Seiryuu has a mirror in the book as well. But the other half must be found by the right people."

As Yui looked away, Keisuke walked in, his mouth hanging open unattractively. "In this case, that would be the offspring of the over spontaneous masters of bad decisions," Nakago concluded, looking narrowly at Keisuke. It was a mark of how alarmed he was that he said nothing to refute this point.

"The Shinzaho belong in the book?" he asked, and as Nakago nodded, he frowned even more, "Even Hikari?"

Nakago only looked at him to respond.

Silence fell, and minutes ticked away. Nakago cleared his throat a few minutes later, but, being who he was, did not think of giving Yui and Keisuke a heads up that a car was pulling into the driveway. He did register movements in the upper quarters of the Seiryuu no Miko's mansion, heard a brief argument that concluded with a high pitched order issued by a thirteen-year-old, and as footsteps came up the driveway, and people hurtled down the staircase, he inclined his head and waited.

"Um, hi," said Hanako, bursting in through the door leading to the stairs, looking mildly out of breath and alarmed. She took one look at the variously stunned grown-ups in the room and nodded. "Right. Thought I'd warn you - your son is about to walk in, and there's a ghost in your living room. Not to mention Li Fen here," she added, tugging on the seamstress's hand to drag her into sight, looking awkwardly away from all men and all former priestesses of Seiryuu - which pretty much left the ground for her to stare at, and she did so, studiously. The handle to the door turned, and Hanako raised her eyebrows. "Thought I'd warn you," she said, again, turning nervously.

It was this party of blank, alarmed people that seven-year-old Jun-chan ran in on, on his short plump legs, Tetsuya rushing in a few moments after. "Sorry!" he burst out. "He ... we... oi," he finished, pausing to lean against the doorway to catch his breath. "His bag and... he just decided to... oi, I should cut down on the red meat."

He looked up, expecting Yui to be giving him a cold, furious look, but she was looking at Jun. They all were, all of them, lined up like a party of guilty loony people, staring at a kid. Oi, he thought. That wasn't helping.

But Jun didn't look at any of them, or at the wreck of a living room that he had walked in on. Or the fact that there was an unknown thirteen-year-old girl holding an even more out of place ancient Chinese seamstress standing by the door, or that Keisuke and Yui looked like they'd been caught stealing something. Nakago, Tetsuya realised with a sudden jolt (which reminded him that he should have been a lot more worried about Nakago meeting his son - and then he thought perhaps it was worse that they couldn't see him, and that made him cringe), was gone.

In fact, if the little boy thought this was odd at all, he did not show it. Instead he stared at something on the table, beside the book that Tetsuya had dropped about fifteen minutes ago. "Kaasan, what's that?" demanded the boy, pointing.

As one, all four (visible) people in the living room turned. There, beside the book, glowing brilliantly blue, was Yui's earring - the Shinzaho of Seiryuu.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Thanks for reading, everyone who is reading. I keep looking at the story stats and feeling good, because at least SOMEONE is reading - so thank you so much! It's one of the few things that keeps me going. This chapter was hard to write not because of the content but because I was out of practice, I had easy access to all five seasons of How I Met Your Mother, I wanted to keep things chronologically correct, as far as I could - although the Miaka arc is a few hours behind at this point - and also I've broken BOTH my shift keys and the backspace button now needs to be smacked every time I want to erase something and typing is actually exhausting. All of these are true and all of them as excuses. But on the plus side, I have a lot of the next two chapters written and we're finally moving SOMEWHAT. Coming up... what Taiitsukun said, why that part of the forest is a safe place, and something about soup. Cheers, and doooooooooo review (and I'll love you forever - even a 'not great' or 'holy crazy typo Batman' will be nice!).

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.


	24. 23 The Gingerbread Man

_Note: The first scene in this chapter happened a little while back. It should chronologically have been included in the chapter before, possibly just after Miaka's run-in with Boushin, but I messed up. So the first half of this chapter is late morning/early afternoon, but the latter is later afternoon/edging towards dusk. *nods* Also, warning for crude childish humour (cruder and more childish than normal, that is), in lieu of ... well, you'll see!_

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**Chapter Twenty-Three**

**Gingerbread Man**

* * *

The sun had traversed to its sphere of descent by the time the Empress's palanquin reached its destination, not too far from the city boundaries. It was not more than an hour's journey, if one was, of course, walking by oneself. But Houki couldn't walk; the travesty of the Empress actually having to move her feet! It was a miracle that she wasn't as rotund as the bell in Suzaku's temple.

The retinue had made slow progress through the quieter roads in the city, taking gates and passages reserved for precisely such a situation, wherein the royal family needed to leave the palace without ceremony. It was rare that this happened, and these occasions were marked, almost always, with sorrow.

Things had changed, and Miaka's presence only made it more evident that they had come far from a much simpler time. Ceremony and protocol always had been a part of court culture, but there had been a time when if the Suzaku no Miko wanted to walk out and have a little chat with the family members of one of the seishi, no one - least of all the emperor - would have asked questions, or had her followed. If people thought it was strange for a woman to be so forward, they hardly ever questioned it, and they never ever believed the difference was cause for anxiety or concern.

But there had never been a time when the Empress of the country could take a walk on her own. Houki was used to it, in the very least, accustomed to the subtleties and nuances that were a part of interacting with people, as a woman of her station. She had in particular learned that sometimes the most subtle way of doing something covert was to do it as openly as possible - and the fact that that made no sense whatsoever was, in fact, a testament to how well this worked. She had arrived at the grand house, not too far from the Palace, in her palanquin, with the required retinue of guards and her one most trusted serving girl, and a calm expression covering the growing nervousness at the pit of her stomach.

Though she had done this a number of times before - conducted a covert business in an open manner - she didn't fool herself into believing that there weren't a large number of things that could go wrong with this plan. She was too refined to think it fortunate that Lady Wu, the ailing wife of the former Prime Minister, had fallen ill, especially because the latter was the closest Houki had come to making a friend after her wedding to the Emperor. Even if sitting with her and chatting about their mutual problems was entirely impossible with the man - this was a privilege she had shared only with Kourin and, now, to an extent, with the Suzaku no Miko - the woman had been a steadfast ally; a breath of fresh air in an otherwise poisoned environment, Houki often thought, for it was rare that to find someone trustable now.

But the older Prime Minister had served not only Houki's husband, but also his father, and later her, until Boushin had turned fourteen and she had returned his rights to him. The changes in the administration had been swift but subtle, but the severance of the old, wise administrator who had served the family so well had perhaps marked the moment when it became clear that the changes were not for the best. Master Wu had left with dignity and grace, and now held a comfortably large home in the city. He remained in high standing, a respectable and well-loved man; but he no longer had any role to play in the affairs of the state. It was one reason Houki knew she could trust him.

He walked to greet them, across the courtyard of his home. "Empress," he said, bowing low.

"Shushou-sama."

"Not anymore," he reminded her, smiling so his pink, plump cheeks shielded his already rather small eyes. Though he looked friendly and warm, the worry in his eyes was evident to Houki. He was an old man and his wife not terribly younger. An illness at his age could lead to much worse.

Houki nodded and walked with him across the courtyard, leaving all guards but one behind. Theirs was a strange relationship in many ways; it was not usually proper for a woman to walk beside a man who she was not tied to with blood. But Houki had spent fourteen years making decisions about the country, running it as efficiently as she could. Rebuilding an entire nation after a war had not been easy, and she had needed help. There had been great suspicion about her abilities as a temporary ruler, especially given her two years of self-indulgence at the outset. But Master Wu had accepted her, advised her and listened to her advice. They were not equals, certainly, with the multifarious folds of social norms dividing them, but somehow they'd settled at an equilibrium, ever conscious of one another's status and standing, but at the same time aware of each other as people, individuals. To the extent that you could be an individual when bound by so many rules.

"How is your wife doing?" she asked him, as they walked, making no haste. The serving girl and the guard walked a few steps behind them.

The old man's face altered. "Not well," he said. "She will be glad to see you."

Houki swallowed down her guilt. If he thought her selfish for the favour she had asked of him, he made no indication of it. Rather, he looked grateful that she had come at all, as though he did not doubt her motives, despite her request. She turned away from him to look at the verandah down which they were walking now, the railings nearly as gracefully ornamented as those in the Palace. Yet, being a smaller place, it was more peaceful. They walked to the inner sanctum, to the door behind which Houki knew lay an ailing woman, who had done her a favour through her suffering. The nervousness at the pit of her stomach bubbled a little.

As evenly as she could, she turned and nodded to the guard and the serving girl, saying nothing. As they bowed, she turned and followed the old man into the room.

A single lamp flickered in the corner of the room, enough to cast the space in soothing soft light and to make the transition from the brightness outside easier. The old woman lying on her bed turned and made to sit up, looking almost embarrassed to be caught ill by the Empress. Houki caught her eyes and shook her head. "No, don't get up," she said, quietly.

But even before the old woman had relaxed, she'd turned back to the man standing on the other side of the room. Though she could not quite see his face, she knew he was looking at her, with the same expressive eyes and immutable expression she remembered so clearly from fifteen years ago. She brought her hands together, only to find her skin somewhat clammy, as it had been the first time she'd seen Saihitei, the first time she'd walked into a room full of elderly administrators. Odd, what the guilt of one's own making could do.

Then, the man stepped forward and knelt. "Your Highness," he said, in a strained but still respectful tone. He was not terribly tall, though certainly he was taller than her. It didn't occur to her that she looked as familiar to him as he did to her, her stomach flipping a little at the well-known eyes through which he looked at her.

"Please rise, Chou-sama," she said, choosing the highest honorific out of a uncertainty of how to act now. It was fairly silly, for she was older, if not actually old, and had come so far since the last time she'd seen him. Yet, it was terrifying - and this time, she couldn't honestly bring herself to believe that her friend stood with her.

He rose and looked at her, out of eyes so like his brother's - and yet different, comprising a formality that Kourin's had certainly lacked, and hesitation she knew to be his most telling trait. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me," she said, after a certain length of awkwardness had passed. "It took a while to arrange for this, and I apologise. Master and Lady Wu have been very kind, despite their troubles."

Rokou looked like a fish out of water. He was a fish out of water, of course; a fairly well-to-do clothes merchant did not really belong to the same circles as the aristocracy. She was reminded strongly of the one time she had met him before, out of respect for her friend and a sense of obligation - and the guilt that she tried not to think about, of not having had the fortitude to have sought him out at the right time. She'd put it off, when she ought to have gone to him three years before she did, or perhaps a few months later, the day that the last letter had come, or perhaps at the end of the war. There had been many instances, many moments when it would have been more than merely appropriate.

But she hadn't. Consumed by her own grief, she had reached for no one but her son. The two years before Miaka had returned were a blur of hopelessness in Houki's mind, a dark space of time spent in the same terribly dreary room (since then, she had allowed her handmaidens to make raucous suggestions about the colours of fabrics she should have in the room - making changes, making it brighter); she felt guilty now, for her selfishness, her assumption that she had been alone in her sorrow.

She had tried once, when Boushin had been three-years-old, to speak to Rokou and his wife. He had come, of course, because she was the empress and he had to respond when summoned. And he had not seemed cold and distant, but it had been an impossible mess of a situation. The conversation had been awkward and somehow terribly painful. His wife had seemed altogether more receptive, but the fact that she had known Kourin - the Ryuuen who had wanted to be Kourin - for the last year of his life, that she had received the last of his letters, drove a wedge in between an already awkward situation where Houki couldn't help but feel she'd coerced by virtue of her status the man into speaking with her. She had never tried to speak to him again.

Until now, of course.

"Perhaps you're wondering why I asked for you to meet me in this manner," she prompted.

Rokou bit his lip, and then nodded. "I confess I don't understand."

Houki nodded, resisting the urge to bite her own lip. Why was this so difficult? Perhaps the only way to go about it was to be blunt. She sighed mentally. "I... I wished to speak to you about your wife," she said, with some hesitation.

Rokou looked up as though he'd been slapped.

"I know of your troubles, and the recent... break-in."

Now he cast about the room, looking at the elderly couple, who were watching him intently. It was hardly the ideal situation, Houki knew; he probably thought they were trying to corner him, and so she used her most gentle voice. "You do not need to fear anyone here, Chou-sama. You are in trusted circles. I only wished to tell you that your wife is safe. The place the Suzaku no Miko came from was a safe house, with several people aware of what's happening. And they'll do everything to make sure she returns to you."

Houki found herself uncomfortably aware that she was being stared at. Goggled at, really, as though she was saying something entirely incredible. She braced herself for what she'd believed would happen all along: accusations, hurt and worried inquiries, disbelief... But the look in his eyes, it took her a moment to realise, was cool.

"You wish to say something," she prompted, aware that her station would keep him from speaking honestly.

As Rokou remaind silent, Houki found she was strongly reminded of what she'd known of the man before she'd met him; the difference between him and his brother had never seemed so stark to her. The first time Kourin had mentioned her brother, she'd called him 'weak-willed'. To Houki, who had been raised as conventionally as possible, they idea of saying something as, well, honest about an older male family member seemed preposterous, and she had said nothing at the time.

But over the year she'd known Kourin, she had grown to realise that those words were not in truth any kind of comment on Rokou's character, but a single and concentrated manner of expressing frustrations that could have had no verbal outlet. Not that a familial lack of understanding was an unprecedented issue, but hers was a somewhat delicate issue. No one else would have believed it either, for Kourin had a distinctively undelicate, though in no manner graceless, air about her, but it was true. And a man, particularly a less than brave man, a man who was by all appearances as much of a clothes trader as one could be without being much else, was not liable to handle it very well.

"Please do speak," she pressed him, trying not to sound despairing.

Still, a few moments passed before he could speak. "Is that why," he asked, and Houki could sense the frustration in his voice, "you have asked for me? To make sure I say nothing?"

Houki blinked, slightly taken aback. Not because it was untrue, certainly, but she had expected he'd have a little more to say about his wife. "I won't lie to you and say that's not true."

"You forget who my brother was, Empress," he said, with a certain lack of finesse that Houki did not notice in the face of his quiet fury. In face of the thing she had once believed would give him and her a common ground to share. "I would not dishonour him and what he stood for in that manner. I know the ... present ruler," he managed, now quieter still, as though suddenly aware that he had spoken in a manner potentially offensive to the Empress. Yet, surprising her, he pressed on, "does not favour the old legends. But they are true, and I won't forget. So if- well, I won't forget," he amended, but Houki could nearly hear the words he hadn't said. So if that's all you've brought me here to say, then you're a very bad judge of character.

"The Miko said you were alarmed by her arrival," she said, trying not to sound like she was trying to justify herself.

"She hit me with my vase," Rokou pointed out, severely.

It was a mark of how seriously Houki took everything that she didn't even feel inclined to crack a smile at this. "Yes, she did mention that."

"That was somewhat distressing."

"I imagine it might have been."

"The Miko has," Master Wu spoke up, "a tendency to ruffle up tension."

"But that does not mean that I have forgotten what she did and what she stands for," finished Rokou, conclusively.

Houki bowed her head in acknowledgement, feeling mildly chastised, if only by her own conscience. He was not wrong in having discerned that she had wished to do some... some, as it were, damage control, to make sure the already precarious situation didn't tilt over.

As she fell silent, Master Wu spoke again. "Perhaps all the Empress is trying to say is that you must be careful who you trust. We are not the only ones who love the Miko but we are probably some of the last few fools ready to fight for her." He spoke with a conviction that looked entirely out of place on his pink, fluffy cheeks. Nonetheless, Rokou bowed his head before him.

"I understand that," he said, surprising Houki even more. "These are troubled times." Then, he sighed. "You need not have taken so much trouble, Empress. But I do thank you for news of my wife."

An awkward pause was born and stretched out infinitely, as awkward silences tend to do. It split up and multiplied, and all the contents of the room became very interesting to Houki all of a sudden. Yet, she stood there, as straight-backed as ever, not moving an inch perhaps simply out of training not to. A keen observer may have noticed that she pulled slightly at the skin of her thumb, the very placid equivalent to dancing from one leg to the next.

The interview with Rokou was clearly over, but there were things to say. With the passage of time, these things had taken on the character of an old, rusty heirloom; something that was important to oneself, but which you were never sure would mean quite as much to the person it was being passed on to. Perhaps there was no cause to speak of the past, perhaps letting old memories lie was more reasonable. The pressure grew in her chest, until she finally turned away and drew from her sleeve the letter she'd brought for Master Wu to send. Handing it over, she was about to sit with the old lady when Rokou spoke up, so softly that she almost did not hear him.

"Forgive my rudeness, this time and before." Houki turned to look at him. The merchant seemed torn, mildly bewildered too, and infinitely awkward, as though speaking of this with her was unprecedentedly strange. But he spoke anyway. "It's just," he said, finally looking at her openly, "you look so much like him - like her. It is difficult for me to look at you without seeing him."

Houki opened her mouth to say something, but found that she didn't, for once, entirely know what she needed to say. She thought of apologising, but it was not something one could really apologise for. She thought of telling him about how she had first met Kourin, and the instant flash of recognition they'd both felt, but that seemed unwise, for Rokou clearly was as uncomfortable with the subject of his brother a consort for the king as pronouns in general appeared to be with Nuriko. Then, she thought of telling him about how Miaka had thought the same thing, but the affair of how Miaka's assumptions had been proven false made her falter. The awkward silence, revitalised, floated around, until Rokou settled the thing by bowing very low and taking his leave.

"I'll leave the way I came, Master Wu," he said, quietly. The old man nodded, bowing as well. Rokou turned.

Say something, Houki thought to herself. Say anything! He was almost at the door to the back of the room before she could bring herself to do so. "Rokou! - I mean... Chou-sama," she said, as he turned, looking at her expectantly. She hesitated. "I- be careful," she finished, a little lamely.

But if he thought this was foolish, he did not do anything to indicate as much. Instead, he inclined his head, and was gone.

* * *

There was a resounding sort of silence in the living room.

It was not often that Yui did not know what to do. she was used to taking intense decisions at work, hard calls that had to be made at the spur of the moment; Yui had spent years honing that skill. But there were some things in life you really couldn't prepare for. More that anything, she found herself unprepared for her own utter lack of judgement; despite Keisuke's warning, what should have been her foremost instinct - to make sure nothing from her adventures in the book ever touched her child - had taken a backseat to a headstrong conversation she could have had later.

Somewhat reluctantly, she looked at Tetsuya, who somehow looking simultaneously relieved and alarmed. Then, she looked away quickly, before she could even think the unsettling thought she knew was dawning. Her instincts towards protecting Jun from Nakago and the book had taken a backseat to an older instinct, a familiar instinct; the need to protect herself. Not from the book or from Nakago, who she did not believe intended them any true harm, but from Tetsuya, who could see through her. An instinct to keep those secret parts of her safe, away from people she believed were purer at heart, who never doubted the things that she could not help question sometimes.

"Kaasan?" Jun asked, looking at her with big wide eyes, tugging at her skirt and snapping her out of her reverie. "Is that for me? Can I play with it?"

"What? No!" declared Keisuke, and then, as Hanako stepped on his foot, he quirked an eyebrow. "Ow?" he said, because this did not hurt; Hanako was about half his size, after all. Hanako gave him a scathing sort of look, with the kind of unfiltered judgement that make thirteen-year-old girls a terrifying species. Telling a kid not to do something will only make them want to do it more! she yelled at Keisuke mentally. Keisuke failed to perceive this entirely.

"What is it?" asked Jun, staring at his mother, wide-eyed.

"Um," said Yui, looking much like she did when trying to negotiate a particularly difficult business deal. Jun staring at her reminded her somewhat that in this world, the real world, she was more in control. In this world, with some careful negotiation, everything could be taken care of.

"Where did it come from?"

"Well," said Yui, trying to summon the words for some quick and careful deflection.

"Can I touch it?" Jun darted towards the table

Keisuke and Tetsuya, best friends not only in name but also in spirit, quickly moved to form a human wall in between the Shinzaho and Jun.

"Nothing!" squeaked Keisuke, doing a very bad job of not looking sheepish.

Jun was not the kind of child who leapt at things without first understanding the basic premises of what was afoot. He thus stared at Keisuke Ojisan with some interest. It was not as though he hadn't seen the caught-in-the-act expression on a grown man. It often happened that otousan encountered okaasan with the same expression. But it was rather intriguing, because it usually meant that Something Decidedly Interesting Was Going On.

"Nothing at all!" added Tetsuya, confirming this suspicion.

"It's blue and pretty and I want it!" announced Jun, now determined.

"What's blue and pretty? Tetsuya? Eh?"

"Nothing's blue and pretty!"

"Tetsuya is a bit pretty, but he's not blue.."

"Not OTOUSAN!" yelled Jun, delighted, as Tetsuya attempted to kick Keisuke. "The thing! Want thing!"

"ICE-CREAM FOR LUNCH!" yelled Tetsuya, panicking entirely.

"What?" yelped Yui, as her husband swept down and picked up his very small seven-year-old son. As Jun-chan began to object, he tickled the boy into screaming giggles, which drowned out Yui's objections.

Keisuke had the impression of something like a small hurricane sweeping through the room. Later, when he dreamed of it, he would remember Tetsuya and Yui doing a bit of a jig, some kind of very evocative ballet, as they left the room in varying states of excitement and with a certain amount of yelling. It only became clear to him that this left him stranded with Hanako and the strange woman from the past, and of course, a wall that used to be Nakago.

* * *

In all the time that they had travelled together, Hikari had not thought to ask Nyan Nyan about what Taiitsukun had said, who she was and precisely what Nyan Nyan knew. This was partly because she was terrified of the waterworks that would start up at the mention of Taiitsukun, but mostly becase with people trying to kill them and everything, she really hadn't left room for the possibility of a literal-minded child-creature woman actually withholding information because 'Kowaiineechan never ask'. It was all beginning to feel like a particularly weird cosmic joke to Hikari. She hoped the universe was amused.

"Well, I'm asking now," she said, sitting cross-legged and red-eyed across from Nyan Nyan and the rock that had tripped her over. Nyan Nyan had stopped crying, though she still sniffled every other minute. The rock seemed very much as though it was related to the rock that she'd hit her head on, but on the whole remained silent and steadfast. A full minute passed before Nyan Nyan drew in a particularly impressive sniff, and began.

"Nyan Nyan look for Kowaiineechan. Taiitsukun tell Nyan Nyan to leave her and find Suzaku's Shinzaho. She know Kowaiineechan coming to Mt. Taikyoku."

"How did she know?" asked Hikari, more than a little suspicious. Though she did trust Nyan Nyan, simply because it was impossible not to, she didn't want to. Nor did she want to trust Taiitsukun, really, whoever she or he was. Anyone who had any hand in causing this (this being her general state, presently) couldn't be trusted. She could feel herself shaking with anger and pain and infinite frustration, but she was more controlled now and was, despite herself, curious about Nyan Nyan's story.

"Taiitsukun has _big _mirror. It tells her everything about everybody all over the world whenever she wants to know. She know when Kowaiineechan come." Then, a little furtively, she added, "She know when Kowaiineechan born."

Hikari raised an eyebrow. "How did she know that?"

"She know everything."

Hikari found that this was a slightly unsettling prospect. Even if that was possible, did one really want someone who knew everything in the universe? Not to her great surprise, Hikari found herself even more suspicious now than before. Somehow, when Chichiri had mentioned her, she had thought of Taiitsukun as a kindly old lady, someone comforting and soothing, probably with a large number of cats. But now she sounded like an evil witch of a woman, probably surrounded by crows and flying monkeys, who travelled to distant lands on her bicycle to kidnap young women. Though even the wicked witch of the west sounded like more of a treat at this point.

"You said you were looking for her," Hikari said, looking at Nyan Nyan somewhat severely.

Nyan Nyan's eyes grew wider still, and she looked ashamed now. "Nyan Nyan lost. Nyan Nyan scared. Nyan Nyan see bad men on Mt. Taikyoku and want to warn Taiitsukun but her home missing. Everything closed and Nyan Nyan lost," she concluded, terribly mournfully, and looking dangerously on the verge of tears again. Infuriated, Hikari decided that if she did cry again, she'd knock her out and leave her here (never mind that her arms weren't quite working yet, and knocking out a five year old - or someone who looked like a five year old - was really not something she would do).

"And I found you," said Hikari, eyeing her as though she wished she hadn't. But she was beginning to look back to the night she'd arrived in the book world, and the questions she'd not had the time to ask cropped up now. "Why did I find you?" she asked, looking steadily at Nyan Nyan, who balked and hid her face behind her hands. It was a while before she appeared from behind her hands, and Hikari wondered, with some annoyance but also a certain clarity, if she was trying to filter through her head what she could tell Hikari and what she couldn't. Perhaps that was too suspicious on her part, but she was not fond of Nyan Nyan right now.

When the tiny girl peered out from behind her hands, thus, Hikari glared at her. Nyan Nyan gulped and nodded. "Kowaiineechan find things," she said, solemnly and hurriedly, as though this was any kind of answer.

"I found you," Hikari agreed, raising an eyebrow.

"And other things. Kowaiineechan find other things."

There was no time or place where good grammar was amiss. It took Hikari a few moments to realise that this was meant to be indicative of what she COULD do. And then she scowled. Really, that wasn't any kind of explanation at all. "What do you mean?"

"Kowaiineechan find things. Kowaiineechan find me and Chichiri-"

"I _fell _on Chichiri," corrected Hikari, not liking where this was heading.

"Nuriko-chan," recited Nyan Nyan, her voice becoming somewhat stronger.

"She was right there-"

"Touda-sama," Nyan Nyan pointed out.

"And now you're just spouting nonsense."

"You find Touda-sama in Eiyou Palace."

Hikari blinked, caught off guard this time, and Nyan Nyan pressed on.

"You find yellow dragon, Hikari-sama. You find things."

"Stop it," snapped Hikari, taken aback by the appellation. "You can't take random occurences and attribute whatever meaning you like to them. I didn't find anything, it just found me and I just-"

"You find Shinzaho," said Nyan Nyan, so utterly sincerely and Hikari now considered knocking her out simply for being very annoying.

"I didn't. I fell over this rock," Hikari growled, through gritted teeth, pointing at the rock beside her. "You dragged me here and I can't find my way back and I don't know where the Shinzaho are and the two people who can help us find them are very far away and I'm never going to be rid of you!"

"No!" yelped Nyan Nyan, shaking her head vigorously, looking fierce by her miniscule standards. "You find objects! They help you, but you find them!"

"HOW do I do that exactly!"

"You LOOK!"

Hikari nearly choked. "Oh, you're a genius," she said, dryly, leaning back, but Nyan Nyan caught her hand and dragged her towards her. Something warm and familiar spread from her fingers to Hikari's.

"NO!" yelled the tiny girl, and _tugged_.

And before she could prepare for it, Hikari was _falling_, falling endlessly through bright _awareness_. She flailed, terrified suddenly because she was hurtling through this thing that was like space, but which she would later identify as lucidity. It didn't have a light or a sound, but she was somehow drowning in both. She couldn't just see Nyan Nyan holding her hand, though her eyes were wide open, but feel Nyan Nyan grasping her and connecting her with something like the world.

She'd only ever experienced this once before, and that had been in the palace at Eiyou, when the little boy had put his hand on hers. But even that didn't compare with this tremedous, terrifying cascade of clarity. She took a breath, not doing it consciously; but found herself shocked by the spread of consciousness that followed the breath of air. As though the universe had filled her.

Everything alive glowed, somehow fuelled with the sunlight that didn't quite reach the floor of the forest. A trail of ants crawling along the length of a wild grass blade, glowing red; a surprising number of moths fluttering not too far from them, giving them a wide berth; the trees, glowing brightly in a thousand shades of green and brown and blue. Nyan Nyan sat before her, bathed in pink and formless, much, much brighter than Hikari could have anticipated. She could not merely feel Nyan Nyan's arm on her; she could feel her rushing through her, in a connectivity shockingly intimate (though oddly, she would later reflect, not offensive - in fact, if anything, Nyan Nyan had an essence that was fundamentally soothing).

And then, as she gathered some control, she turned to look at the third corner of their triangle to find herself confronted with a tiny being, with arms, legs and a head that reminded her of a gingerbread man, sitting where the rock had been, staring at her and glowing a bright green.

Hikari let out a yell of alarm, wrenching her hand away so hard that she fell over, something one wouldn't have considered possible in the cross-legged position. Yet she was lying on the ground, and it felt like she'd fallen to the earth, back to normal polychromatic vision, when Nyan Nyan floated into her line of sight, hovering over her head and looking triumphant.

"See?" she said, severely, evidently not disturbed by the green gingerbread man at all. "You look."

* * *

Jun found himself placed on the kitchen counter, facing the door, while his father placed himself strategically behind him. By the time his mother stormed in, Jun was facing her and Tetsuya was well hidden.

"Ice-cream for lunch?" Yui demanded, looking not unlike the sleeping dragon you do not poke. She moved around to the back, and in doing so stepped on the elegant and totally smashed china lying on the floor, unattended. This did not appear to improve her mood.

Tetsuya moved to the right. "Yui, now-"

"Are YOU going to clean up what happens afterward?" demanded Yui, moving left.

Tetsuya, accordingly, changed course. He stepped on the broken china, lying innocuously on the floor, and perceived that this did not improve his wife's mood either. As a criminal cornered, he raised both hands. "Yui, look-"

"Of all things in the world, Tetsuya!" Crunch went his foot, and and the vein on her forehead - the one to be feared - popped out. "You could have said anything; you could have- ... you could have-."

"How else would you have done it?" demanded Tetsuya, sensing some hesitation and speaking up before it had passed.

"I don't know!" snapped Yui, taking a bowl and slamming it on the counter. "I don't care!" She wrenched the door of the refridgerator open, so a bottle of jam fell out. Yui said something - and later Jun would think it was something crude, because Tetsuya said "Oi!" in that way that he always did when he found himself confronted with something he didn't think was appropriate, but because he was entirely without prior experience by way of being appropriate and it was, in fact, quite rare that he found himself in these situations - but by this time, Jun was too far out of the kitchen to have heard anyway.

As he padded down the passage to the living room, his school shoes squeaking only a little on the marble floor, he perceived more tension in the living room. Standing at the door, he peeped in, studying the occupants with great interest.

For the first time, Jun looked at the new people in the room with some interest. They were both girls, he decided, mostly because of their clothing, though the girl in the old lady clothes was much smaller than the girl who was wearing his mother's skirt. He couldn't see their faces, for they stood with their backs to him, but by the look on Uncle Keisuke's face, who looked like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, they were probably scolding him.

"You never tell a child not to do something! Don't you know that?" the girl in the skirt demanded.

Keisuke scowled. "Now how would I know that?"

"Do you not have children?" said the lady in the old lady clothes, in a much softer voice that made Jun decide he liked her instantly. That was, of course, not something he would be sure of until he'd seen her face properly and determined whether she was an evil monster of some kind or not.

"No, of course not, I don't want any-"

"Thank god for small mercies."

"But why don't you want any children?"

"I- I just-"

"He wouldn't have a clue what to do with them!"

"What does his wife say?"

"No wife," proffered Keisuke, resigned.

"No wife?"

Keisuke put his head in his hands and thus missed entirely the sight of Jun padding into the room.

There it was, lying on the table amidst all the confusion. There was some kind of book lying beside it, but Jun wasn't terribly interested in it. He was fascinated by the blue object lying beside it. It looked very familiar to him, and he knew it was his mother's. He also knew that she didn't want him to touch it at all. But of course, now he had to touch it and see what the fuss was all about. Jun cast one last furtive look around the room, but no one was interested in him at the moment.

He reached for it and picked it up.

* * *

Hikari straightened up in a hurry, though for once did not bump her head against Nyan Nyan. Perhaps this was because she had moved somewhat differently, fuelled by a kind of extreme wakefulness, or perhaps Nyan Nyan had anticipated her movements, the connectivity between them lingering for a few moments. Either way, she wasn't concerned with anything but the image of the gingerbread man she'd seen on the rock.

Though of course, he was nowhere to be seen, though Hikari looked incredibly closely. It took her a few moments to realise that she was kneeling on the floor of the forest with her nose pressed to a rock.

"But didn't you see it?" demanded Hikari, in a great state of excitement. "Didn't you see him? He was right here!"

"Kowaiineechan need see!"

"I saw, for god's sake!" yelled Hikari, impatiently. "I saw him sitting right here!"

Nyan Nyan did not respond. It occured to Hikari that she wanted her to stop and consider what she had just seen, as though reflecting on a particularly important lesson. At times like these, one wished often for a coconut, or perhaps a rotten orange; nothing in the world is as satisfying to hurl at a tree in frustration as these particular kinds of fruit. The only thing Hikari could throw around here was the rock, or perhaps Nyan Nyan herself (but if she had ever doubted that the tiny girl was in fact something other than a tiny creature, she could no longer claim rationality as an escape route). It was quite reluctantly that she turned to consider Nyan Nyan, who was still glowing, though perhaps this was out of annoynance of her own.

"What did I see?" she demanded, failing in her struggle to sound reasonable.

"Kowaiineechan find things."

"That's really debatable. But what was that and what did it have to do with me?"

Nyan Nyan bit her lip, looking almost mutinous as she did so. Once again, Hikari had a sense that she was trying to filter through her mind what she could and could not reveal. The thirteen-year-old fumed silently. It was clear to her, even though she had struggled for a long time not to think of it, that Something Was Happening. Quite possibly, these were Things of Great And Intense Meaning And Significance. They did not have time to be so ridiculous about the whole affair.

For the first time since having landed in the universe of the four gods, Hikari felt as though there was a rational explanation for everything that was happening. It was just very well hidden under rocks and and glowing five-year-olds.

Frustrated, she turned to look at the rock once more; and then stared, for of course, there was no rock.

"You're _kidding_," muttered Hikari, mostly to the forces of the universe, though of course they were not kidding. On the contrary, this was in all likelihood the universe trying to be serious. As she turned to look at Nyan Nyan, she found that the girl had stopped hovering, and was now seated on the same rock.

Hikari tilted her head. "It moved," she observed, feeling a bit stupid. "You- it moved?"

"Kowaiineechan go to safe place, now," said Nyan Nyan, nodding calmly. She looked almost relieved as she said this, as though she'd bypassed all the convoluted rules and norms of communicating with the god object in her head somehow. Hikari wondered if it was her imagination, the three solid knocks to her head (two by the same damn rock) or some kind of lingering Nyan Nyan magic in her system that made her see the tiny shadow of a green gingerbread man in Nyan Nyan's lap. Then, she wondered why her mind was being so unusally slow on the uptake.

"What safe place?" she asked, and finally, Nyan Nyan smiled, as though the crazy thirteen-year-old had for the first time asked the right question. Hikari scowled, almost forcefully, because she didn't want approval, damn it, she just wanted answers. But Nyan Nyan rose (and as she did, the green gingerbread man vanished). "We follow?" she asked.

And before Hikari could say or do anything, the rock rose by about an inch on what appeared to be the tiniest toadstool legs, and began to crawl towards Hikari's legs.

Hikari felt her eyes widen, her eyebrows reach for her hairline out of pure alarm, and a strong desire to have someone like Hanako around to appreciate the significance and pure oddness of this; there was a damn rock walking towards her and no one in the vicinity could appreciate this as it needed to be. _Rock moving! _her mind yelled. _Rock walking towards legs like a toddler, for GOD'S SAKE SUKUNAMI HIKARI YOU BIG OAF WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BROUGHT US?_ But Hikari could only swallow down her infinite surprise, and stare.

Nyan Nyan hovered before her, staring at her expectantly until she was forced to snap out of her surprise. "We follow!" enunciated Nyan Nyan, nodding vigorously.

"Right," said Hikari, and turned to find the rock waiting for her patiently. The pain in three quarters of her head throbbed. Left with no real outlet, she nodded. "We follow," she agreed.

* * *

Nothing happened.

Jun picked it up and looked at it closely. It looked like the weird hooked things kaasan put in her ears to look prettier. Jun thought that when she wore those hooked thingies, she looked a bit softer, somehow, but she was still basically his kaasan, and soft when she wanted to be, hooks or no hooks.

This hook had a blue drop at the end of it and that was what was glowing. Jun held it up to look at it, mesmerised, but rather confused. Why was it glowing? He wondered if it was some kind of precious metal, and, to test this theory, he put it in his mouth.

At which point, a man in battle armour with golden hair popped out of the wall next to him and said, "Do not ingest that, little spawn."

Jun was so surprised that he almost swallowed the hook. To his credit, and perhaps fortunately, he did not yell. He removed the contents of his mouth in order to properly stare open-mouthedly at the man. There were a large number of unusual things about this man, his battle armour, his golden hair and the fact that he had popped out of the wall just being a few of them. The most notable thing, as far as Jun was concerned, was the fact that he looked calm and wasn't telling him not to play with the interesting blue object. This made him a lot more interesting and worth talking to. In Jun's case, this meant asking a plethora of questions.

He began.

"Did you come out of the wall?" he asked, quirking his head to the side.

"No, tiny creature, I came out of the book."

"How did you come out of the book?" Jun asked, studying the man with unblinking wide eyes.

"I stepped into a mirror and popped out of the book," said the man, without batting an eyelid.

"How did you step into a mirror and pop out of the book?" asked Jun, reasonably curious.

"I believe magic was involved, spawn."

"What is spawn?"

"It is a tiny and annoying offspring."

"What is offspring?"

"It is the consequence of a night of drunken revelry."

Jun considered this, and seemed to accept it. "Why can't I eat this?"

"Because when we get it back then will be contingent on how much ice-cream you eat."

"Kaasan says when I eat a lot of ice-cream, I-"

"Kindly," said Nakago, "refrain from elaborating the point, spawn."

"What does that mean?"

"It means don't talk about it."

Jun grinned cheekily. He knew the response to this one. "Don't you do it?"

"No," enunciated the man, flatly, bringing the grin to a short end.

Jun gaped. "Eh? How can you not do it?"

"I'm a ghost."

Jun stared at him, and then, following all kinds of logic, reached out a hand and poked at him. His hand went right through him. Jun's eyes widened and he looked up in delight at the man, who did not move, or bat an eyelid, and instead, only stared at him. Jun was not impervious to that kind of look. He retracted his hand.

"You're a ghost?" he asked, in a hushed, awed sort of tone.

The ghost leaned in, as though to tell him a secret, when his mother's tone cut sharply across the room.

"Nakago!"

"What's a Nakago?" asked Jun, blinking, staring at the man still - he seemed most likely to give him a straight answer, after all.

"GET JUN AWAY FROM HIM KEISUKE!"

"Did you just say Nakago?" said the earring, now clutched tightly in Jun's hand, in a distinctly female voice.

The little boy's eyes widened, and he looked down at his fist. He clutched it even tighter as Keisuke swept down and picked him up to cart him out of the room. Pandemonium had broken out in the living room by now, and no one was really paying attention to him. "BYE OBAKE-OJISAN!" he yelled to the ghost, hoping he wouldn't go away, even if he was pasty-faced and unsmiling (Jun could imagine that, being dead, you wouldn't be too happy about it) and his mother was yelling at him (Jun couldn't entirely make out what she said, but at a certain decibel, anything that was said was liable to be negative). Then he remembered the earring in his hand, and brought up his tiny fist to his ear discreetly.

"I _didn't _say Nakago, you big obnoxious Amazon cow!" said the earring, now in a distinctly male voice.

Jun's eyes widened even more and he quickly put his hand away from his head, dropping the earring into his pocket. He didn't want them to take away the talking blue hook thing. Fortunately, no one noticed. Keisuke, carrying him out now, ruffled up his hair, and said, "Let's see about getting you that ice-cream, shall we?"

"HAI!" yelled Jun, excitedly.

****

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* * *

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**Author's Notes**: Another delayed chapter (and edited belatedly, at that). My excuse this time is that I had to assist my fellow inmate (i.e. the Dad) in packing up most of the house (because it is now being renovated), and then I went to a lovely, lovely place called Hampi, where my attention was divided between egrets, an Alsatian and two very nice old fogeys. But at least the story has come up to where I thought it would by this chapter, even if the trajectory of it has changed dramatically. I didn't think Nakago and Jun would have a chitchat, but I really couldn't resist. The gingerbread man - anyone reading the Genbu Kaiden should know who this is; anyone who isn't - a) you must! and b) there shall be Explanations eventally. The earring has an explanation also, though if anyone cares to guess, go ahead. *bounces around*. The placing of most of the Japanese should make it self-explanatory ("Obake-Ojisan" means Ghost Uncle roughly, I ... think), but I will add a list when I edit again.

On another note, a friend who has been reading this told me that the tone of the story had changed in the last few chapters. I think this is likely, but I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, so if anyone reading feels like dropping a comment on this matter, please do.

Thanks, as always, to_ Flashyfirebird_, _MercuryMoon_, the Mysterious Bunny Wife, and the friend who's been reading this not here, but over e-mail. You're seriously keeping me going. *BIG KOALA CLING*

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.

Chapter Twenty-Three


	25. 24 Safety

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

**Safety**

* * *

_"In one such dark place, I felt conscious of a singular accession of fright, as if some subtle and bodiless emanation from the abyss were engulfing my spirit; but the blackness was too great for me to percieve the source of my alarm."_  
~ H.P. Lovecraft ~

* * *

Jungney's story began with an odd, cryptic statement. "I can find anything you've lost," he said, in a context that he would never remember. And though he knew that the man was a con artist, who had left out the most crucial details of his job from their conversation (something he could hardly fault him for, for he had not spoken of his own past and who he was, truly, above and beyond bein Houjun), he found himself oddly intrigued by these words.

"Anything at all?" he asked, trying to sound more critical than hopeful. "You can find anything?"

"Anything at all, my fellow inmate. I have ... a gift."

_A gift._ Houjun almost smiled, because it sounded familiar and at the same time was perhaps a wonderful con this man played out with gullible strangers. "And how did you come by this gift?"

"Well, my friend, I shall tell you," said Jungney, though he wouldn't, not eventually. "Even though it is a long story, it's not like we're going anywhere."

There was an anticipatory silence; he found himself waiting with bated breath. The truth was that it did not matter what Jungney said to him, as long as he kept speaking. He could not speak to him of the things he had seen or the things he suspected, for the man was still a voice without a body and Houjun, no matter how distraught, knew what was sensible and what wasn't. But to hear another human being speak, tangibly speak, made him feel oddly more concrete himself.

"Oy," said the storyteller, presently. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," said Houjun, "yes I am."

* * *

They made quite a sight, Hikari was sure; a thirteen-year-old and a hovering child following a rock. In this crazy universe, it made perhaps a little more sense than it would have in Tokyo; but even then this rock was stretching the limits of belieavability. Of course, even a skeptic of Hikari's order couldn't discount that which was happening directly before her, and so they followed a rock.

The rock led them through an almost invisible path. Sometimes, forgetting that one of the people following it was neither six inches high nor able to simply teleport through rough patches, it led them through a path that did not exist at all and Hikari found herself stuck in a thorny bush. She had never been more glad for her school shoes, which were made of the uncouth, stubborn material that allowed no aesthetic pleasure, but also seemed to dispell pokage. But other than these brief interludes, at the end of which she always found Nyan Nyan and the rock waiting for her patiently. This did not really serve to improve her mood at all.

But for the most of it, they walked through an easier path, and Hikari had to admit that the rock was doing a lot better than she would have, when left in a jungle. It wasn't an unkind rock, because when there was a path easier to take, he would take it, only for her benefit, clearly.

They walked for quite a while, though there was no way of measuring time in a jungle where sunlight had a perfunctory sort of presence. The day remained, in the very least, in that period of its cycle, where the sun was not low on either side, but high enough to fall into the broad generalisation of "afternoon". It felt like an hour or so to Hikari, but could have been much less or much more, when finally, the rock stopped, and Nyan Nyan hovered gently to the ground.

"Safe now," said Nyan Nyan, and smiled so happily that Hikari, to her great horror, found herself somewhat cheered. She quickly amended this with a fierce scowl.

"I don't get it," she said, scowling, but the voices reached her ears in the next instant, a garble of voices, a man and a woman, evidently arguing about something. Hikari looked around, blinking. "Where is that coming from?" she asked, blinking.

The rock rose as a Nyan Nyan pointed before her. Together, girl, crazy-floating-demi-goddess and rock moved to thicket of bushes lined up before them. The rock toddled under the bushes, presumably to appear on the other side, Nyan Nyan hovered just a little so she was just a little higher than Hikari's head, and Hikari, with some scratches, carefully separated the branches of the bushes a little so that she could look.

It was a small clearing, lit by clearer sunlight. And at the center of this clearing, around a small fire, were two people - a woman and a tall human being whose face was masked with bright paint, leaving some doubt unto his gender.

This, of course, wasn't surprising. Hikari had not been in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho long enough to be accustomed to not finding a noisy human being at every corner. It had ccured to her that smething was amiss with the landscape in the book, but she had always attributed that to the fact that, well, it was a book she was walking through. But more than that, really, it was the fact that everything was incredibly quiet. Finding three people in a clearing in an otherwise human-less forest was, therefore, not particularly surprising to her.

The people in themselves were a whole other matter. Hikari couldn't have any way of knowing what constituted 'decked up' at this end of the parallel universe, but she was very sure the woman was, attired in bright red, probably bridal, clothing. Her companion, standing in the middle of the clearing shaking his fist at the woman, seemed to be shaped in a manner that was essentially male, but carried himself with an exaggerated grace that seemed distinctively female. The paint on his face coloured the question ambiguous, though Hikari was far less interested in that as she was in his long drawn out movements. He was pacing, only it didn't look like pacing, so much as it looked like a dramatic dance of some kind, with elaborate hand movements and the most impressive huff Hikari had seen for a long time.

The woman in the bridal attire, however, seemed singularly unimpressed.

"Do stop behaving like a hassled duck, Tomo," she said, blandly. "I don't care if you feel the need to keep uttering Nakago's name to yourself all the time. Even if it isn't his true name."

"I DO NOT NEED TO KEEP UTTERING HIS NAME TO PROFESS MY LOVE FOR HIM!" he hollered.

"I don't care if you do."

"BUT I DON'T!"

"_Anyway_," she said, firmly, "maybe we should think about what we want to do with him tonight." She jerked her head towards the other edge of the clearing, and Hikari noticed, for the first time, the third person in the clearing.

There was something remarkably different about him, even though Hikari couldn't tell - not yet anyway - what this was. In comparison to the brightly painted man-type person and the bride in the center of the clearing, he was quite plain, and somehow brown. His clothing was plain, though Hikari recognised the colours of that the royal guards in Eiyou had worn under their armour, his appearance... well, he wasn't a bad looking man, but next to the man called Tomo, it was hard to draw a conclusion; and perhaps the only interesting thing about him was the fact that sticking out of a very plain scabbard was a distinctively ornate and unplain hilt of a sword. In the light of the fire, this hilt appeared to glow, just as Tomo and the bride seemed to glow, and on the whole this made the man look even more unappealing.

Yet, there was that absurd flash of recognition; a sense that she knew him. She knew him as she had known Chichiri, and as she knew Reishun - instinctively and with total recognition. But she knew him also because she had seen him, or aspects of him that had somehow reverberated in a manner that was genetically illogical, but so real that even Hikari didn't doubt it.

"...Shu Eian," she breathed, and was aware of Nyan Nyan next to her, nodding in silent confirmation. A great sense of relief spread over Hikari. She forgot, for the moment, that she had personally believed that Shu Eian was a bit of a git (anyone, she had reasoned, fuelled by logic and loyalty, who kept someone like Reishun hanging by a thread was a bit of a git) and probably more than a little poncy; instead, she found herself claimed by the entirely illogical belief that she was now safe. Eian knew Reishun, but perhaps more importantly, Reishun vouched for Eian.

She started to speak, opening her mouth. And then, blinking, she closed it, and stood there with a dawning sense of awkwardness.

Having figured this out did not, of course, suddenly equip her with the social skills required to pop out of the bushes and introduce herself as the Shinzaho of Suzaku. There had to be some kind of protocol for leaping out of the bushes and announcing one's presence. What would she say? 'Oy, ye noble Eian, I am the fourth Shinzaho!' seemed reasonably informative and succinct, but lacked finesse. As a result, she stood there long enough for two things to happen.

First, she became excessively aware of her need to make use of the bushes, a fact that did not help her come to any kind of conclusion other than the fact that the idiots who wrote adventure novels were a bunch of unrealistic, unfair fools who hadn't a clue how to prepare one realistically for a foray into the supernatural world. Just because one was confronted with a floating demi-goddess and a moving rock did not mean that one's bladder went on holiday. Quite, as it happened, the contrary. (This would later lead to a great deal of irritation with an unwitting Eian, who, never having been a thirteen-year-old girl stuck in a strange world, would never quite grasp the horrors of having to a) use the outdoors for what was, in her own world, a firmly indoor activity, and b) deal with having to expressing the need to do this to a boy.)

Second, dawdling in the bushes with a tiny girl poking her very hard in the hips and a rock that, while lacking eyes, gave her the distinct impression that it was studying her expectantly, she realised something that Shu Eian had not.

"Oooh, you do make a good point Soi," said Tomo, rubbing his hands together in unabashed relish.

He followed Eian, who was carrying dry twigs and leaves to the center of the clearing to add to the fire. He followed him incredibly closely, at that, but Eian somehow seemed even less impressed with him than Soi. In fact, for all intents and purposes, he ignored the painted man entirely.

"I vote for an illusion," announced the latter, undeterred in his enthusiasm by this lack of interest. He pulled out a feather from his head and ran it through his fingers, grinning. "It's been a while since we did a good illusion."

"Yes, but that's because your illusions always take a very sordid turn, Tomo," stated the woman whose name was Soi, rolling her eyes.

"Can't blame me, can you? He's quite a dish and I've always wondered what it would be like to-"

"No illusions," said Soi, firmly.

"Oh you're _such _a bore," drawled the man, pretending to pout.

He bent over to look extremely closely at Eian and then, to Hikari's great incredulity, proceeded to poke him in the ear with the feather. Eian shivered dismally, as though cold, but other than this, he did not react.

"And you're just bored without Nakago to focus your energies on," said Soi, sounding quite bored herself, as Hikari tried not to think what she was thinking. Sentences that began with 'could it be' and 'is it possible' usually ended with something completely absurd. In this universe, these absurd things had an annoying tendency to be true.

"I didn't say his name, for god's sake!" yelled Tomo, tossing the feather at Soi. "I can't believe I'm stuck here with YOU of all people!" Throwing both hands into the air, he turned and stalked dramatically towards the fire.

Then, as Hikari watched, he walked right _through _the fire, entirely unaffected by the flames.

And this led almost directly to a number of entirely unprecedented events.

* * *

Once upon a time, Jungney began, he had been a part of a small wandering tribe. All they ever did was wander. Had he, Houjun, ever heard of such a useless preoccupation? Anyway - they wandered. They prayed to the gods of rain and hunting and roads, most of whom it transpired they had invented in the course of their numerous journeys.

You had to do _something _to pass the time.

But one day, their tribe encountered a caravan of traders.

At this conjuncture, Jungney spoke of a woman - or that which later Chichiri would remember as a woman, even though he would have the impression that she was several women at once and only be giving Jungney the benefit of the doubt.

Mostly, though, the consequence of this encounter was that he decided trading was a far more lucrative trade.

His people were offended, first because he'd lain with a woman of another clan, when their own people were dying out, but more because he had betrayed the tribe's ethical code. You see, as all tribes do, they had their own legends; they were not just wanderers, but pathfinders, people who sought out the furthest reaches of the world and documented it.

"Mapmakers," muttered Chichiri with some surprise.

Sure, said Jungney, though he was quick to add that he had never seen a map made in his life. He did possess a unique ability to locate things, but that was probably more because he was a very perceptive person. Mostly, his people just wandered, walking around like a bunch of homeless idiots. It was, he emphasized, annoying. And quite besides the point, really, because this was, after all, a story about a thousand beautiful maidens he had rescued - and who had, of course, then turned into varying versions of women who Chichiri, being a monk and a gentleman, could only call 'worldly' - and gold in hoards and trunks of treasure.

Chichiri did not point out that really, that wasn't the premise he had started with.

The fog that had descended on his mind did not lift, but he was reminded that no fog that descended on anyone's mind could deprive one of one's reason and imagination. And as Jungney talked, Chichiri found that he felt better, as though the gust of imagination had given him the space to breathe again.

He found himself thinking, rather inexplicably, of three old friends (one perhaps a lot older than the others), walking down a road towards something. For a few moments, reminded by his friends, he thought of Kounan, his home, the riover and the flood. And he thought that once Jungney had shared his story, perhaps he could share his own - not all of it, perhaps, but the parts that didn't reveal his identity as a Suzaku seishi. Something like good sense reminded him that he was speaking not to a friend, but to a voice whose body he could not see.

As he considered this, he realised the silence around him had the air of having been around for an inappropriately long time. Chichiri blinked. Had Jungney finished his story and he, Chichiri, said nothing? The next second, a snore resounded through the walls.

Sighing nearly with relief, he sat back, looking at the single window through which he could see a single star, listening to the steady rhythm of the conman's snoring.

That there was something wrong here was altogether an understatement. It had never so happened that Chichiri had found himself without a memory. Even if he sometimes briefly forgot, he always managed to locate the memory in the recesses of his mind, hiding behind a rock, washed away by the undercurrent of a flood - but still always within reach. Without being able to find his own memories, he felt oddly bereft, lost in a particularly blinded sort of way.

There were only shadows of things that had happened, and he was sure they were important. Why had he thought of Taka, Tasuki and Tokaki walking down a road? He had a strong feeling that was relevant, yet he couldn't remember where he'd seen this, or why he thought of it now.

And thinking of all this, he slept.

_And a few hours later, later, they came for him, and though he didn't know them, he knew that their laughter terrified him. Something inside him twisted, and an instinct guided him to the small corner of his mind before they could put the chains to his wrists._

* * *

The first of these unprecedented events was that Hikari let out a squeak that could only be described as girly. There was, of course, a second unprecedented event - and indeed, a third and fourth; but none of these are relevant just yet, and none of the actors at the present moment were aware of them at all. The squeak however settled the social conundrum Hikari had stumbled into.

"WHO GOES THERE!" boomed Eian, and before Hikari could drive herself into another conundrum about how to respond to this, he had breached the bushes to drag her out by the arm none too gently. It was hardly the welcome she had been expecting; oddly, in all the socially awkward consequences of approaching the man that she had thought of in the last few minutes, she had not thought that he might be suspicious of her.

"Ow!" she protested, as he tossed her down to the ground. He had a sword to her throat before she could propose a backing claim to her objection.

"WHO ARE YOU?" he bellowed, looking altogether more threatening than a man who had been tickled in the ear could really have been expected to.

He wasm Hikari realised, a tall man, and looked very much as though it would be no trouble for him to pick her up and toss her into a tree. It was a more unsettling sight than she could have anticipated, simply because she hadn't imagined there was anything worth being afraid of in this world other than the man with the black eyes - and certainly not Eian. But he stood there looking most threatening, and this led to another rather girly squeak. She opened her mouth to consider what to say, and failed to conjure the words for it.

"ANSWER ME!" he yelled.

"I'M _TRYING_!" burst out Hikari, frustrated. His expression seemed to soften just a little, but he held the tip of his sword to her throat quite steadily. But it was beginning to register to him that he wasn't dealing with a spy or a recalcitrant soldier, but a thirteen-year-old girl who had, though he didn't know it, had a very trying day. He raised both eyebrows imperiously and expectantly, the menacing look not leaving his eyes.

More unsettlingly, both the painted Tomo and the only mildly less ornamentally attired Soi were hovering on either side of him, peering at her with great interest.

"Um," began Hikari, eyeing the two of them nervously. They did not speak; they only peered, with very narrow looks in their bright, sparkly eyes, which seemed not merely to reflect the light of the fire as Eian's did, but which were glowing with the light itself. As though they were somehow capable of absorbing it and becoming partly luminiscent.

_Ghosts?_ thought Hikari, somehow less alarmed by this than the man she believed to be her of course, the moment the thought occured to her, she could see it; they glowed, not as the rock glowed - terribly bright, to the point of being opaque - but in a manner that was a lot less tangible.

And the rock, she realised, blinking and suddenly looking around the ground, was nowhere to be seen at all.

Eian's sword tapped the side of her head. "Try harder," he suggested, distrust pronounced in his gaze.

"Um," said Hikari again, "I mean don't- I'm not an enemy, I'm kind of on your side and-" Now, she thought dismally, he thinks I'm mentally challenged. "Um, Reishun?"

Eian's expression shifted, almost dramatically. A hint of hardness remained, of course, but he looked stunned; there could have been no doubt about what he was feeling, for his features expressed it vividly. Even through her alarm, Hikari found the expressiveness of his features interesting. "What?" he asked, in a more civil, but still suspicious tone.

"I mean, I know Reishun," said Hikari slightly more evenly, staring at the sword that remained steadily pointed at her. It occured to her that if he didn't believe her, then all her troubles would come to a swift end. He did not trust her. Had she been in any position to evaluate this, she would have realised that this probably more to do with the fact that he had spent probably a fair amount of time with the two ghosts, who seemed quite inclined to haunt him to insanity. But this didn't occur to her. She was reminded very strongly of her first impression of the man, from Reishun's description. To her surprise, she found that she was feeling something she quite rarely felt so strongly: disappointed. "You are Shu Eian, aren't you?" she asked, presently.

"How do you know Reishun?" he demanded, his eyes hardening slightly.

"And who is Reishun?" asked the painted-faced ghost, looking at her with exaggerated interest. "A girl, perhaps?"

"It's all he needs," commented Soi. "He's the picture of misery, this one."

Eian's sword tapped her on the head again. "Well, girl, answer me! Don't just sit there staring into space!"

"I-"

The painted-faced ghost gasped. "You see us?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Tomo," said Soi, loftily, peering at Hikari even more closely, much to Hikari's discomfort, "no one could look at you and not comment on it."

It takes a person of a specific kind of disposition to be able to deal with all of these things at the same time. Hikari did not possess this disposition. Eian was now looking at her as though he suspected her mental health. _Ugh,_ she thought. _Ugh ugh ugh! SAY something Hikari._ "I... well, I m-met her? I mean I'm not really from here and there's this- I kind of-"

"Hotohori-sama?" said a sing-song voice from behind Eian.

Eian looked as though he had been stung. Though his eyes didn't leave Hikari, his entire stance changed, from one of great suspicion and a total lack of friendliness, to one of realisation (friendliness did not follow). He didn't turn to look at Nyan Nyan, but there could be no doubt that he was extremely aware of her, and the look on his face, as though he'd been slapped (Hikari was sorely tempted to slap him too), proved he knew this voice. He had been waiting for this voice. He stared at Hikari so hard that she felt as though she was about to explode from the pressure of his gaze.

"Hotohori-sama?" said Nyan Nyan again, this time floating around to look at him.

Eian straightened, drawing back his sword. Yet he looked only at Hikari. "You," he said, flatly, with a touch of incredulity. "You're ...it."

This did it. She hadn't particularly hoped for confetti and dancing, but civility and interest and some amount of faith would have been nice. After a couple of hours of bumping her head in various places, having a screaming match with a tiny, floating and annoyingly literal-minded girl, meeting a rock, and then traipsing through the forest to what was evidently meant to be "safety", she couldn't bring herself to care about his haunting, or what she might look like to him. The tragic hero facade only served now to remind her of how Reishun had spoken of him, and how everytime he was mentioned, Hikari had been claimed by the definitive sense that this man was, in fact, a ponce. And thus, Hikari found her tongue.

She took the opportunity to lift herself from the ground, drawing herself to her full height. It did not really help that Eian continued to tower over her. All of them did, possessing the kind of altitude that was, to a short and slightly plump teenager overly conscious about her stomach and the generally atrocious appearance of her belt, rather intimidating. Eian seemed, as far as Hikari could tell, even less impressed. He looked as though he believed he had fought bravely for the fate of the world and the universe itself had screwed up, an expression that was not out of place on his tragic hero facade.

"Yes. Sure. I'm it," she said, scowling at him. "I take it you know Nyan Nyan."

His nostrils flared, and his eyebrow inched towards his hairline. "We're acquainted," he agreed. Hikari experienced a strange burst of protectiveness for Nyan Nyan too. "Do you know that you are being haunted by two ghosts? Yes, I see you," she added, taking great pleasure in watching Eian's grow completely flummoxed. "And that paint is just weird."

"Just like your father," drawled Tomo, sneering at her. "You have no taste."

"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded Eian, seemingly unaware of them, before Hikari had the time to feel surprised. Tomo's sneer turned into a smirk; Soi, standing by him, seemed less inclined to gloat, though she watched Hikari studiously, as though deeply interested. Neither was inclined to oblige her by popping out and scaring the wits out of Eian.

"You don't see them," said Hikari, genuinely surprised by this.

"He won't," said Soi, quietly. So quietly that Hikari couldn't be sure if she was pleased about this or not. "He can barely sense us."

"See?" said Tomo, taking the feather out of his hear gear again to poke Eian's ear with it. Eian shivered again, the hollow misery in his eyes returning. Hikari, who wasn't feeling terribly friendly towards Eian, hesitated for a moment to tell Tomo off for what he was doing, and in that moment, Nyan Nyan - in orb form now - whizzed past her head to ram into the ghost. Of course, she went right through him, but this seemed to be punishment enough for him, for he yelped and jumped back. "Alright, alright! Spoilsport."

"Though I am of course tremendously impressed that his face didn't scare you," said Soi, her face so blank that Hikari hadn't a clue if she was joking or not.

It didn't matter, she reminded herself. Foxed, and determinedly ignoring the ghosts now, she turned to look at Eian again. He of course looked more suspicious than ever. "You- you have the other Shinzaho too, don't you?" she asked, and as his eyes widened even more, she sighed. "Look, I don't think we have the time for this. We need to go help Reishun and the No Name woman. Nyan Nyan here," - Nyan Nyan of course did oblige her by popping out of the orb and going, "_HAI_!" - "thinks they're in great danger and we should- we should, well, um." She stopped. Though he had lowered his sword he still held it tightly. And he watched her altogether too intensely for her liking.

The fact that he didn't trust her was somehow more terrible than his yelling and tossing her about and standing around being tall. Hikari did not like to think of herself as a hopeful person; she certainly had hope, but she didn't place faith in other people and expect them to fish her out of a difficult situation. Of course, she had never needed to ask for help. Having the kind of parents she did, she had never been in a situation that was categorically hopeless. And through her journey through the book, someone had been around to help her out. That Eian, who was supposed to be a Suzaku warrior and apparently Reishun was going to marry him, didn't trust her, didn't seem too trustable himself, was more shocking than she would have liked to admit to herself.

She drew a breath and glared right back. "Are you going to help me or aren't you, Eian?"

Eian looked at her, as though he didn't quite believe she was here, and then at Nyan Nyan. This seemed to convince him a bit more. "Yes," he said, though Hikari was decidedly unconvinced. "Of course I'll help you."

* * *

When as an old man he looked back on his life, Donghai would come to the conclusion that falling over in the heat of the battle and getting stuck in a relatively large pot (which was of course not really designed for a relatively large man's behind) was the best thing that ever happened to him. At the moment, he had no such notion. Not only had he fallen into a pot and become terribly stuck, he had been rescued by the woman who had smacked him into the pot in the first place. And after removing him from the pot (she said this was because the pot could be useful), she had tied him to a tree.

But had he not fallen into a pot, he would have been dead, as most of his companions were, and there was something to be said for not being dead.

He also did believe that he was the only man in the world to have ever fallen into a pot in order to wake up from what felt like a long dark magical enchantment of some kind. He told her as much, and though this didn't deter her from tying him to a tree and demanding all kinds of information, she did seem to believe him.

It was clear to him that this was no ordinary woman. For one thing, she carried him (with pot), her fallen comrade and their various possessions to the where the stream flowed in exactly one trip. But, in a display of foresightedness he had scarcely ever seen, she had also thought to pick up all the food and supplies the little band of marauders had traveled with, extra weapons and his set of extra clothes. She'd washed her fallen friend's wounds and bandaged them up, and then dressed her in his clothes (for this process, she had of course tied him to the other side of the tree). She had then demanded he tell her where to find the right kinds of herbs and fruits to make some kind of concoction for them all to eat, and while this brewed in the (thoroughly rinsed) pot, she washed her friend's old, blood-stained clothes.

Donghai was officially terrified of her.

It didn't take much on her part to get him to talk. As it happened, he had never quite been too fond of his comrades and could not quite remember why he had followed the 'leader' - not to mention, of course, that she had proved she could snap his arm like a twig if she so wished. That she was incredibly beautiful didn't really hurt.

So he told her all that he could (and as it happened, this was quite a lot). He had only been an honest thief until a few months back (and he was quite a good thief too, he told her, to her total lack of approval), when he'd met the now departed leader of the gang. The leader called himself Xiang, but Donghai suspected this wasn't really his name at all, because they had met other gangs in their ventures and discovered their leaders too introduced themselves at Xiang. If he had thought this was strange before, he certainly hadn't said anything about it; in fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember thinking much of anything in the last few months.

"What did he make you do?" Reishun asked him. Evidently, she didn't think any of this was odd, even though even to him it sounded like a really flimsy excuse for his actions.

He hesitated, clearly embarrassed. "We kept plundering villages, pillaging towns. He kept saying he was being given orders by someone higher up, and we always assumed it was one of the chiefs. There's so many that it really doesn't matter anymore."

The woman gave him a severe kind of look. He cleared his throat and pressed on. "We did this until a month or so back, when ... I don't know what happened, but everything changed. We came to this forest, along with some others. But we ran into real trouble here. Most of the others fled-"

It appeared he'd said something of interest, for she looked at him with some more urgency than before. "You were looking for something," she said, tentatively, almost hopefully.

"Someone," said Donghai, nodding, noting the hope that sprang into her face. "We're looking for a man from Kounan. That's not special, though, we've got so many people coming in from Kounan lately. It's funny, but the fact that we don't have a political leader, not really anyway, means that there's more money here. People in your country are starving."

"But this man?" asked the young woman, eyeing him seriously.

This was clearly important to her, and so, of course, Donghai attempted to bargain a tad at this conjuncture. He asked for freedom in exchange for information. She said she'd let him keep his limbs and maybe give him some soup if he kept talking.

This seemed, he decided, like a reasonable bargain.

He went on. "He's some kind spy or sorceror or something. He must be, because we ran into terrible things everytime we came close to where he was."

She frowned. "Terrible things?"

"Ghosts," he told her. "Demons."

"Ghosts and demons," she repeated, blinking.

"And terrible illusions you couldn't break out of until the Xiang - or whatever his name was decided to help you."

The woman looked at him with some confusion, as though this didn't entirely add up. Donghai studied her as she considered his words. She was quite a beautiful woman, possessing a kind of innate feminine grace that was charming without being ostentatious. And though she could indeed snap his limbs into bits, there was something about her that was incredibly fair, and he knew that she wouldn't hurt him, unless he tried to hurt her or her friend, the No Name woman (which was what her comapanion called her).

He had watched her tend to her wounds, until she'd pointed him another way at any rate, during which time she talked to him, asking him where they were and how far it was to the nearest town. He had responded but he wasn't quite sure she listened to him. Donghai was not good at too many things, but he was an observant man. You had to be, if you chose to make your living out of thievery. There was a lot of overt physical prowess required in the field, but the best thieves were those who could read people, through their words and through their silences. And the greater care with which she treated her friend afterwards, after her wounds had been washed and she had been dressed, only added to the suspicions that had dawned through her silence before. He didn't know what it was, but something changed - something had shifted, almost dramatically from the awkward and distinctly unpleasant equation they had seemed to share before, in the forest when they had attacked them.

And as the No Name woman shifted in and out of consciousness (until the nagging sensation in her shoulder turned into pain that was too tangible to really ignore), he saw the young woman grow more conscious too; more aware of her friend who was waking.

The subtlety of this was lost on them both, of course. Grunting, the No Name woman sat up and proceeded to poke at her shoulder.

"If you make that bleed again," said Reishun, edgily, "I'll tie you up to that tree with Donghai and leave you here."

Slowly, the woman turned and glared at Reishun, and just like that, that shift and awareness were replaced by irritation. This, he thought, suited her features a lot better somehow. Perhaps it was the preliminary frown lines on her face outlining a frown, or the seriousness in her greyish eyes, but she was not someone who was used to smiling, clearly. But then again, she was probably in a lot of pain.

But as she became aware of a person already tied to the tree in question, she ceased to scowl and instead raised her eyebrows in the universal, timeless expression for 'what the eff'.

"Ah!" said Reishun, significantly, reading her clearly."Donghai here has been telling me a story, haven't you Donghai?"

Donghai only nodded, almost amicably for a man tied to a tree. "Now you can let me go?" he asked, sweetly, with precisely no hopes of this coming true.

Reishun, equally politely, shook her head. "Not quite yet, Donghai. Wu Ming," she enunciated, so it was clear what she thought of her chosen name, "meet Donghai. Donghai, this is Wu Ming."

"Pleased to meet you," said Donghai, quite politely, aware that he was not really improving matters.

'Wu Ming' seemed utterly displeased and cranky. She turned around a bit more, slowly, but looking keenly around to gauge the situation. Donghai could almost read her thoughts as her perception caught up with her. Not the same clearing, but still a clearing. Is that a stream rushing by? Why, yes, it is. And that's where she must have washed my clothes- but if she washed my clothes then-

She looked down at herself in a hurry, looking at Donghai's clothes on her frame. They hung off her much smaller and much more lean frame, and she looked rather young, sitting around in overlarge clothes and looking confused. She peeked at her wounds, observing Reishun's handiwork. And then, in sudden awareness, she looked at the other woman, as though it had taken her mind a little while to register what this meant. There was clear alarm in her eyes, just a brief flash but vivid enough for Donghai to note it from his position. Alarmed realisation and, for some reason, not a small measure of fear. Reishun only cast her a glance, but said nothing, heading to the pot to stir the soup instead.

The No Name Woman took a breath, seeming to steady herself. As she shifted, her and struck the sword by her side, and, looking down, she ran a finger along its blade - cleaned of the blood that had been spilt by it, and gleaming. She sat there for a moment, her now loosened hair shielding her expression from Donghai's (admittedly rather nosy) stare. For a moment it looked to him as though she would say something, but she thought better of it. Instead, she drew up her shoulders, raised her chin, and spoke evenly, almost slightly defiantly. "Where are we?" she asked, sparing Donghai an annoyed sort of glance to make sure he knew she didn't appreciate his general existence. He tried not to squirm and failed. Slowly, she got to her feet, presumably to look around a little bit, but Reishun turned swiftly.

Reishun turned and looked at her. "Are you planning to take a walk or something?" she demanded.

The No Name woman raised an eyebrow to regard her with some annoyance. "No, I-"

"Then sit down. Can't have you fainting all over the place like that."

"I don't faint all over the place," said the woman, almost patiently.

"Right, just like you don't bleed all over the place," said Reishun, rolling her eyes infuriatingly.

This made the girl go pale, and she sat down, as though somehow Reishun had touched a nerve. Touchy thing, Donghai thought.

"Where are we?" she repeated. Reishun, who had asked him this before, didn't seem to remember.

"We're a few miles off from Longchi," Donghai answered, almost conversationally. "The western side of the town, that is."

"Donghai was just telling me the history of the town," added Reishun, getting up to head to the pot in the middle of the clearing. She produced a bowl, much to Donghai's everlasting surprise and awe, and poured the soup into the bowl. Then, she handed it to Wu Ming, who stared at it with infinite disdain.*

"Yes," said Donghai, eagerly, "when the Black Dragon fell from the heavens after his father struck him down, that is where his tooth fell and made-"

"I know the legend," snapped Wu Ming, irritated. "What are we doing here? Where are the horses?"

"Grazing," said Reishun, heading back. "Recuperating. No one's going to be fainting all over the place now."

"I _don't _faint all over the place," she repeated, through gritted teeth, and glared at Reishun.

"_Eat_," declared Reishun, shoving the bowl of soup under her nose.

She eyed the soup as though expecting it to leap out and punch her nose. "I don't think we have the time for this," she said, and then looked up to find Reishun taking some soup to where Donghai sat and handing it to him. Her nostrils flared in disapproval.

"You look like an angry horse," pointed out Reishun, only adding to this. "And we're taking the time. Look," she said, before Wu Ming could say anything further, "you were right."

Eyebrows were raised. "I was?"

"About the snake... thing," said Reishun, a little inexplicably from Donghai's perspective. But this seemed to make sense to Wu Ming, for she shrugged and drank more soup. From where Donghai sat though, this only masked the very slight pleasure at being told that she was right. "There's more going on here, and I think Donghai here can lead us to Eian."

This made the man in question spill some soup onto his already terribly dirty shirt. "Oy?"

"What do you mean there's more going on?" demanded Wu Ming, eyeing him. She was suspicious, but that was sort of obligatory, Donghai felt. More than that, she seemed to be annoyed. There was something deeply wrong about Reishun being friendly with their prisoner. You weren't supposed to make friends with people you were compelled tied to a tree. Or perhaps you didn't tie your friends to a tree at all. Either way, there was something severely antithetical about it all.

"Yeah, and what is this Eian I'm leading you to?" asked Donghai, alarmed.

"And why are we trusting the word of a petty bandit?" added Wu Ming, her lip curling slightly.

"_Eat_," emphasized Reishun, again, with a steely edge in her voice. "And I'll tell you."

* * *

Through the shadows of the things that had happened, he wandered until he found her, sitting by the river with his fishing rod and waiting for him. As he walked up to her, she handed him the rod and smiled, but he couldn't help but notice that she looked ill.

"Are you alright?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"I might be dying," she said, "but I don't think it's time yet."

He nodded, reassured by this somehow. He sat down and told her, instead, that he had made a new friend. "He told me a story today."

"The old ones love you still," she reminded him.

"I know," he said. Then, because he could, he asked her, "Where are we, Miaka-chan?"

"You should know," she said, smiling. "You're the wanderer - haven't you wandered here before?"

"I don't remember," he said, looking at her sadly. So sadly, that she touched her hand to his cheek. Though it was a dream, and he knew it was dream, her touch was tangible to him. "Something bad will happen, won't it?"

She nodded. "Things must get worse before they get better, mustn't they?" He didn't want to agree with her. A monk of course takes things as they come, but he had not always been a monk, and once he had been driven by the belief that everything could be fixed, be made just right. Why should everyone not be happy in the world? Why should one person's happiness be the root of another's sorrow? "But you will listen to me, won't you?" she asked, again.

Helpless, he nodded, and satisfied, she took her hand away.

They sat together in silence, with the fish lapping playfully at the harmless bait at the end of his line. A while later, he lay down and closed his eyes, and while she watched, he slept - slept as though he never had before, dreamless, safe and comforted by her presence, in this place where nothing could touch him.

_And he didn't wake up as the strong hands grip his arms as the chains around his wrists were undone, or as he fell to the floor, the clanging sounds of the chains being dragged along the floor and dumped in the corner. He did not see the cold black eyes that remained on him steadily, or even know of the unholy conglomeration of blood and other substances that he presented._

_The cold black eyes gleamed, and the commanded nodded. "Not long now, Jian," he said, a cold smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Jian, who stood in the corner watching the commander nervously, swallowed. "Not long at all."_

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I made the deadline! For the first time in months! Now I'm very happy - also a little nervous because lots and lots of things happened over the last couple of chapters. I hope things are becoming a little clearer now. I think whatever's happening with Chichiri should become clearer in the next few chapters, if it's not evident now anyway. And what's happening with Soi and Tomo and the earring and Nakago and whatnot will... hopefully also become clear soon, though I think it's pretty clear now. And Eian- well, if he seems kind of too harsh and out of character at the moment, do remember he's under a lot of stress, and... well, also I'm not the world's biggest Hotohori fan. All in all, I don't know! If it's weird and nonsensical, please tell me!

Ummm, I'm noticed that there's been a lot more readers lately? So thanks to everyone who's reading! [insert obligatory begging for reviews here] Next chapter soon! (I hope!)

*This chapter has witnessed a small edit around where the asterisk is. Thanks to MercuryMoon for pointing out the inconsistency!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.


	26. 25 The Ghostly Sinus

**Temporary Unnecesarily Large Amount of Information for the Unsuspecting Reader:**_ Hi! It's nice that you're reading this, and I thank you for your time. In a recent disaster (otherwise known as August 2011 in the life of AGrandMalfunction), my harddrive crashed, taking with it the half-written Chapter 27, scenes from chapters waaaaaay ahead and my sanity. As a consequence, I was much dejected and have only recently found my muses and brains. As a result, I've started re-writing Chapter 27, but while writing it I find myself wanting to edit Chapter 26 a LOT. So, I have taken down Chapter 26 for the time being. Hopefully, you should have two awesome new chapters up in a couple of weeks (it would be less if not for the fact that I have a job and whatnot, grr). Take care, keep reading, and remember, an author blooms in the presence of cookies and reviews. Love and kisses to all!_

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

**The Ghostly Sinus**

* * *

Sometimes, though this was rarely the case, life threw at you problems that did not go away by making a very strong mug of tea. Keisuke had discovered a long time back that, usually, these problems involved his sister. He was now beginning to discover that six-year-olds of the particularly inquisitive variety belonged to this class of problem as well, and really, he didn't know what to do with them any more than he knew what to do with Tenkou trying to taking over the city.

Not that he didn't love the tiny boy sitting on the kitchen counter dearly. He loved him very much, as much as he loved Hikari, which was basically saying there was no crime he wouldn't commit for him. He would walk on fire Jun, really, for while the boy had Yui's brains and nose (thankfully), he also had Tetsuya's tendency to get into an inordinate amount of trouble without trying to. He was both utterly careless and totally brilliant and most teachers at his school were slightly terrified of him. Keisuke, who was in fact not remotely the kind of teacher who thought little children were monsters to be hidden from, could entirely sympathise. There was little in the world that could make a man sweat like the utterly innocent, totally hopeful and infinitely piercing questions of a very curious child.

Without much ceremony, or even waiting for Keisuke to scoop out the ice-cream with practiced ease, he cut to the heart of the matter the moment he was sure his mother was out of earshot.

"Who is Obake-Ojisan?" he demanded, seriously.

Keisuke nearly dropped the ice-cream spoon. Obake-Ojisan? Nakago was now Obake-Ojisan? "No one," he said, severely, before realising this was an answer that was neither suitable nor sustainable. You didn't say stuff like 'no one', 'nothing', and 'don't touch that' to a kid with any hopes of things working out for the best. "Well, he's not a very nice someone," he said, forcefully.

"He tells the truth!" said Jun, just as forcefully. Keisuke put down the ice-cream scooper and looked at him, really looked at him, and took a moment to acknowledge that Nakago - the Nakago who had done inexplicably horrible things to everyone whose life he had ever entered - was being defended by a six-year-old. Then, he exhaled, and acknowledged that that was not entirely true. There had been a moment, a very brief moment, while reading the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho as the final chapter was being written before his eyes, that he had felt a small, powerful amount of sympathy for Nakago. He considered the boy and his innocence, and considered the weight of his own knowledge, and then decided that it was best to tell the truth as delicately as was possible.

"Not always, Jun," he said, shaking his head.

This didn't seem to dampen Jun's spirits at all. "Really?" he demanded, brightly. "How does Uncle Keisuke know?"

"Uncle Keisuke knows because Uncle Keisuke is older, wiser and sometimes this means he knows more than Jun-chan does," said Keisuke, giving him what he assumed was a somewhat stern expression.

Jun-chan giggled at this, partly because Keisuke now had an interesting expression on his face but also because he happened to know something that Keisuke did not. The earring in his pocket, of course, which was waiting for Jun to touch it again to listen to it. Jun couldn't wait. Well, he could; everything in the world could wait for ice-cream. "What is the blue thing?"

"The blue thing is something you should never think about and never touch," said Keisuke, forgetting rule number one all over again.

"Is it magic?"

"Don't be silly," said Keisuke, somewhat unfortunately. "There's no such thing as magic."

"But Obake-Ojisan came out of the book with magic."

"_What_?" demanded Keisuke, flabbergasted. _Obake-Ojisan?! _

"It's true!" said Jun, persuasively.

"It is not!" refuted Keisuke, perhaps a little less persuasively.

"A _magic book_!" asserted Jun, beaming. "I want to see it."

"I think your mother will flip her beans if you tell her that."

"Aah..." said Jun, wisely now, nodding. There was some sense in this argument, and he could accept it, if for no other reason than that the ice-cream had now been scooped into an amazingly enormous bowl and it seemed like a good idea to put all other matters aside for the moment. It was also rather fortunate that they did because his mother swept into the kitchen a few seconds later, looking thunderous.

"Ah," said Keisuke, and took a step back as she reached for Jun, and scooped him up, ice-cream and all, to cart him off to bed.

It didn't occur to Jun to argue that, well, it was still daylight outside. In fact it was not really in his interest to do so at all. Instead, while his mother undid his shoes, he focused on cramming as much ice-cream into his system as he possibly could before she realised what was happening and took it away. To his great and everlasting surprise, she did not. In fact, instead, she sat next to him while he ate and asked him about school - to which he responded with a detailed description of his Headmaster's nose, which had been the subject of today's lunchtime conversation.

Then, yawning, he lay down and pretended to sleep, as his mother stroked his hair. Once she left, switching off the lights in her wake, he brought out the earring, which was still glowing, albeit sort of faintly. He clutched it in his tiny fist and put it to his ear.

The earring snored.

* * *

It was as though a locomotive had invaded Ancient China and was now trying to destroy everything by snoring at it. Every now and again it would become slightly bearable, but the moment Hikari thought of lying down to try to sleep herself, the painted faced ghost would turn onto his back and proceed to snort like several disgruntled pigs. She was almost sure this was an act. How could ghosts have sinuses? But then again, if someone died with a cold, perhaps they had a cold for all of eternity. She did not ask. It was, after all, a little rude to talk about people's sinuses.

Instead, she focused on how strongly she wanted to kick Eian in the ribs, for he was sleeping quite blissfully under the tree, right next to Tomo, completely oblivious to the discordant symphony of Tomo's sinuses.

He still did not quite seem to believe her about the ghosts. On the whole, he had regarded her largely as she would have regarded him, with his great clunking sword and excessively expressive and yet utterly manly demeanour of sorrow: with grave mistrust and a strong suspicion that the universe was having her on. She was convinced that he was helping her only because he was duty-bound. The presence of Nyan Nyan had hit a chord in him, and he allowed himself to be guided by that.

She would probably not have even believed that chord.

They exchanged stories. Hikari quickly discovered that Eian was a thorough individual. A very, very thorough individual whose idea of 'quickly getting a move on' was so incongruous with any accepted definition that it was all she could do not to yank his remarkably silky hair in an unholy manner until he decided to conform to popular beliefs.

Unlike Reishun, who had accepted her lack of desire to speak of the weirdness in her dream, he pestered her for details. In another time and place, she would have appreciated the enthusiasm. She may even have felt fondly for the man simply because he raised no eyebrows (and for him this was a pretty big thing, given that he had very expressive eyebrows) and by the end of her detailed retelling, she didn't think her dream sounded particularly odd or branded her a freak. But because she was stressed, dying to want to find her way back to Reishun and Amefuri, who of course may have been dead by now thanks to Nyan Nyan's timely intervention, and in a lot of pain from her arms and her head, she did not feel particularly appreciative of him pressing her for details.

In fact, had her guiding rock been present, she would have brained him with it. But it wasn't, though Hikari did not notice this at all, because she was too busy trying to control the urge to smack the former spirit of the Emperor of Kounan.

Eian told her his story. He had left the palace a few days before she had arrived in the universe, just as Houki had said, and had since then been travelling towards Kutou. At the Shoryuu crossing, he'd had to abandon his horse to reach the bridge across, and this had slowed him down considerably. But he had acquired a horse at Shishants'un and proceeded eastwards, avoiding the petty marauders and bandits that plagued these parts. Three days back, he'd sensed that which Hikari confirmed to be their arrival in the vicinity and turned back, because (and here Hikari gave him a dirty look) he'd had a Feeling. Tomo and Soi, who had interjected his story with interesting tidbits about how long he took every morning to make sure his hair was perfect (after which Hikari had persistently looked at his hair, which was, in fact, quite shiny), had confirmed this Feeling.

Hikari informed him (them) that she thought very little of Feelings, and narrated her journey with as little reference as possible to the magical and obscure. Nyan Nyan interjected, of course, insisting that "Kowaiineechan find things!" but Hikari was compelled to point out that in all the cases Nyan Nyan had enumerated, she had been found. Nyan Nyan stuck her tongue out and Hikari made a face at her. Then, they had both determinedly avoided looking at Eian.

All of this they had spoken of briefly as they walked, but they were both exhausted. And as the night grew thicker, they decided to set up camp until daybreak. Eian was very chivalrous, of course, and set up a fire and gave her a cloak. But by the time she'd drawn the cloak on, he'd fallen asleep, Tomo lying right next to him and snoring obnoxiously.

Soi, the beautiful ghostbride, sat next to her, watching her consistently and saying nothing at all. Twice, in the vain hope that she may shock the bride into looking elsewhere, Hikari looked up at her as abruptly as she could. But these theatrics seemed to have largely no effect on Soi, who watched her with pure, almost academic interest, looking back so blandly and steadily that Hikari would be forced to look away, stifled by the noise, the knowledge that around their small cocoon of light and irritation lay nothing but infinite silence and darkness, and the sense of havng turned into some kind of new and intriguing specimen of rat. Finally, she let out a growl of frustration.

"How can he be snoring if he's a ghost?" she demanded, infuriated.

"Tomo is a unique being," said Soi, unblinkingly.

"It's put on, isn't it?"

Soi raised an eyebrow, though it wasn't clear whether she was questioning the lack of common sense of the lack of respect for the departed. Hikari found that she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. The staring, however, was a different story.

"WHY do you keep staring at me?" she demanded, eventually, tilting her head to glare at the ghost.

Soi appeared utterly unaffected by her frustration and anger. Admittedly, being a ghost, Soi was immune to the most grievous of threats that Hikari could have made against her. Hikari let out a sound that was trapped irrevocably between a growl and a "nyah", before proceeding to put her head in her hands. Tomo's snores echoed through the clearing. She could feel Soi's gaze boring into ther skull, and this did not improve matters at all.

"So," said Soi, several long and tedious moments later, "how do you work?"

Hikari took a moment to register her words and process them. A probing, oddly clinical ghost in her elaborate bridal attire was hardly the remedy she needed. The wording of the question in itself was a little odd, and it was with a heavy sense that this was going to be one of those conversations that one emerged from feeling alarmingly shuffled, Hikari lifted her head. "I'm sorry?"

Soi only looked at her, patient, clinical, her expression carefully devoid of all emotion. It was odd how someone could look so utterly bland, while decked out in red and gold. She also did not appear to be inclined to clarify her question.

With some trepidation, but mostly a great deal of annoyance, Hikari raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" When Soi made no move to answer, she tilted her head, her exasperation getting the better of her. "Are you referring to the logistics? I work like any normal human being, I sleep, I wake up, I eat, I-"

"But you are not a normal human being," said Soi, smoothly cutting her off. "You are a Shinzaho, a holy object."

"I am a normal human being," stated Hikari, enunciating each syllable.

"You're a holy object."

"That doesn't mean I'm not a normal human being, for heaven's sake."

"I think you'll find," said Soi, not terribly gently, "that it does."

Hikari glared at her. Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of process about this? A slow awakening, as opposed to grand cosmic slaps forcing you to open your eyes and wake up to the fact that your brain was wired the wrong way? Nyan Nyan, Eian and now Soi were all part of this cosmic conspiracy, as far as Hikari was concerned, and it was driving her mad. Particularly because, perhaps because they were wearing her down, she was beginning to accept hints of the suggestion that they were not entirely off the mark. It was convincing, and unsettling, and she was beginning to feel paralysed by the sense that she was trapped in some kind of insane, hopeless dream, with no hope of escape. It was all so strange, so very ridiculously odd, that it was very easy to transition from a state of healthy criticism to a state of doubting one's sanity. Which, for a thirteen year old with no sleep or food in her system, was a proposition that was difficult to face.

"So how does it work?"

"How does what work?" demanded Hikari, frustrated.

"How did you get here?"

Hikari glared at her, beginning to feel the pressure escalate at the back of her head. "I fell into a book, okay?" she snapped, defensively. "And then everything basically went to pot."

"That's not very original," said Soi, and she almost sounded skeptical. Except that Soi did not really sound like anything. Her voice possessed a kind of practiced blandness, an allergic reaction to expression and a stark contrast to Hikari's present state of mind.

The thirteen-year-old prided herself on her ability to cut out the nonsense and focus on what was rational, significant. However, at the moment, the rational was illusive and what she really wished to do was to jump around and scream incoherently for a little while until things became less overwhelming. She was thirteen, damn it. Wasn't she supposed to have another five years before the fact that life was overwhelming would catch up with her? "How do YOU work?" she growled, rather rudely, glaring at Soi.

"Well, I don't, really," said Soi, not skipping a beat. "I'm dead."

"But you're here," spat out Hikari, accusatorily. "How does that work?"

Soi tilted her head and paused just long enough for Hikari to become aware of the possibility that she was being just a tad rude. "I am here," Soi acceded. "I am a celestial warrior, one of Seiryuu's chosen seven, and so I am here."

Tomo's snored punctuated the silence that followed this. Against her will, against every grain of the frustration that was driving her presently, Hikari found herself surprised and intrigued. She looked at Soi, and the woman looked back with a complete lack of expression. Against her better judgement, she found herself wanting to know more, could feel the pieces of the puzzle she was unwilling to be baffled by present themselves to her. And her own head start to make connections, formulations that she didn't want to make.

It was a long time before she took a deep, calming breath, and said, "Seiryuu?"

* * *

She awoke with the inexplicable sense that she was trapped once more. Her chest felt tight and for a whole moment after she awoke, she found that she could hardly breathe. It was a gentle snore in the vicinity that calmed her down.

Then, straightening up and ignoring furiously the stabbing pains in her shoulder and across her ribs, she took stock of the situation.

It was night - a few hours from dawn, by the feel of it, and they were still camped next to the stream. No one appeared to have attacked them, which was by and large a good thing - unless of course this only meant they were lurking in the shadows and about to attack. She looked towards Donghai's sleeping form still tied to the tree and scowled. He was still right there, and this was not a good thing, in her opinion, though her opinion was being severely discounted at the moment. Reishun seemed to trust him, for whatever reason, and believed he would lead her to Eian (something she was quite enthusiastic about, annoyingly enough). It was perhaps true that he could help them cut down their time by about half, but even so, trusting a bandit - one of ithose/i bandits too - was simply not something she would do.

The snores were coming from Reishun (who didn't usually snore at all, but was probably quite exhausted), who had evidently fallen asleep on guard duty and was now sleeping with a reckless abandon. Idiot, thought the woman with no name, deliberately turning away. Everything was exactly as it had been (perhaps a little drier, having had time to warm in the fire) when Reishun had scolded her into going to sleep and recovering so that she did not faint all over the place.

The woman with no name scowled.

She didn't faint all over the place, damn it.

The fire had died, and only a few small embers continued to glow. Amefuri stood, almost perfunctorily, to get more wood, for the night was only getting colder. But then she stopped, looking furiously at the grey fireplace.

She stood there for a long time, considering.

She had not lied to Reishun before, when she had said that she did not run. Yet, for the first time in many years she had the urge to run now. Not because of the injuries or the fright from their kidnapping; she had dealt with much worse. She had done what had been asked of her, after all; she had delivered the letter to the Taihou at Eiyou and kept the Shinzaho of Suzaku out of trouble to the best of her abilities. Weren't the Suzaku Seishi meant to take over now? Reishun could find Eian herself, a prospect that was beginning to seem deeply unappetising to Amefuri: if Reishun's behaviour was of any indication, much fawning and giggling would follow and the Byakko Seishi would be forced to gauge her own eyes out.

Irrationally annoyed, she turned to glare at the gently snoozing Suzaku seishi, and forced herself to acknowledge that there was another reason - perhaps the real reason - for this internal debate. She had to fight down once more her desire to flee.

The sound of rustling behind her made her turn swiftly and reach for her missing sword, her hand closing over air.

"Couldn't sleep?" asked Donghai, utterly innocuously, not improving her mood by much. She said nothing, holding back the instinctive urge to growl at him. He seemed to think her hostility was some kind of warm greeting, for he smiled at her. Scoundrel.

She turned firmly away from him to look for her weapons instead. They were lying laid out on the ground, clean and dry like her clothing. Reishun had gone through a lot of trouble, she could see, not just to arrange everything in the camp symmetrically and in recognisable order, but also to polish the blades. Frustrated, she looked at Reishun again, perplexed and strongly inclined to go somewhere far, far away from her.

"I can't sleep either, sometimes," Donghai added, much to her astonishment. "It's been a rough day too, I imagine. For you and her. She's been working hard all day."

He was deficient, clearly, but he did give her the opportunity to employ all her useless energy in steadily ignoring him. She crouched next to her weapons, examining them carefully. Sairou was known for two things, mainly. The first was its sake, which the woman with no name wanted very much presently, for it tended to have a numbing effect on all other sensibilities, including pain. The second was, of course, the weapons.

Nearly every village in Sairou housed several metallurgists; her own village had had five - until the soldiers came and razed everything to the ground. Now, of course, the guilds in the cities dominated the craft, and it was undertaken for its monetary, practical trade value rather than out of respect for the White Tiger. The old beliefs had gone.

So why should she stay? She pushed the thought away.

None of her own weapons came from her own village, of course; she had left her village as it burned and had had no time to take of the things she had packed for her escape. They'd come ever so swiftly.

Firmly, she pushed this thought away too, and proceeded to check her blades diligently. Most of them came from Tokaki-sensei's doujo, and her sword, shiny and new as it seemed now, had in fact been his. She touched it gingerly now, more respectfully than she had in the last few days when drawing the sword had been painful enough to bring down a storm. Warily, she looked at the sky. For the first time in days, she could see the stars, but this didn't really make her feel any better.

"Is it true you were makiing it rain?"

His words snapped her out of her gloom, and she turned, her expression black as a thundercloud, forgetting completely that she was going to ignore him. Picking up her sword, she walked to him determinedly, and without warning or any real reason (other than that he was markedly irritating), placed the tip just at the edge of his nose. She was rewarded with an alarmed squeak from the large man. "She told you," she hissed, even more aggravated.

"No, of course not," he said, sounding quite surprised despite the sword on his nose. "Why would she do that? She's your friend, isn't she?"

"Who told you?" she cut him off, even more irritated. It was easier to be irritated as opposed to unnecessary guilty, because, really, now she didn't have a reason not to trust her as blindly as she was doing at the moment. It was an uncomfortable realisation. She wasn't her friend, she decided, simply because she didn't want a friend, especially not a soft-hearted, hard-headed Suzaku warrior whose idea of strategy was to throw rocks at people, for god's sake. But the words that came out of his mouth next rattled her more deeply than his astute observation.

"My leader did," he said.

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, going over his words in her mind to see if there was perhaps a different meaning that could be attributed to them. But there wasn't, really. His leader, that skinny loser of a man with a serpent around his neck, had known. "That's impossible," she said, finally, but Donghai shrugged.

"That's what he said."

"What did he say exactly?" she demanded, keeping her sword steadily at his nose.

"He said "'the woman who makes rain' is here"," said Donghai, looking baffled by her reaction. "Amefuri. Isn't that your name?"

She looked at him as though he'd slapped her. "No," she said, firmly. "That's not my name."

"But that's what he said-"

"That's impossible," she emphasized, to his total astonishment.

He seemed uncomprehending of this, or the weight of what he'd said to her. Admittedly, he, a rotten useless scoundrel of a man, would have no real way of knowing the weight of the knowledge he carried, that he so casually let slip. Even so, she found herself quite annoyed. "Why?" he said, and she had to remind herself that smacking people on the head wasn't really a good way to get them to start talking.

"Because only five people ever knew about it," she said, and did not mention the Shenwu, or Reishun or Hikari. Or, evidently, Donghai. "And four of them are dead."

"Then the fifth-"

"No," she said, even more firmly. "She didn't."

Subaru woudln't have. There was no reason for her to have done so. Unless - and for a brief moment, her blood turned cold. Sairou's royal torture chambers were not a very well-kept secret. A country of metallurgists and craftsmen could dole out pain in a scientific, precise manner. Perhaps they'd caught her and forced her to tell them...

But then, Amefuri reminded herself, they'd have to know what question to ask and they couldn't have known. So how.. how was it that this petty scoundrel was sitting here and telling her what her name was?

"It is you, isn't it?" Donghai asked her presently, insistently staring at her. "You are Amefuri of the Byakko seven, aren't you?"

His tone was almost reverential, but filled her with inordinate loathing. She cast him a look of deep frustration and stalked back to her weapons. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the night.

* * *

"Seiryuu, the blue dragon of the east - Tomo and I are two of his chosen warriors. The Shinzaho of Seiryuu is in danger, and so we were summoned to protect the holy object. Well," she added, as an afterthought, "half of it anyway."

"Half?" Hikari's brain caught up, several moments later. "Meaning only half of it is here?"

"And, indeed, half of it is not."

Hikari raised an eyebrow, and then, as another question presented itself, she lowered it, looking uncomfortable. "But..."

Soi tilted her head, patiently waiting for the inevitable, rude inquiry.

"Um, but," said Hikari, a little awkward despite herself, "you're dead."

"That cannot be countered."

"So how do you... you know, work?" asked Hikari, even more awkward. There was a nicer to way ask that, she was sure of it. It just so happened that all niceties were eluding her at the moment.

"The powers of the celestial warriors are not bound by their mortal existence, or indeed by anything else. A warrior will become, and be called upon to become, himself, when he is called upon."

"Or she," pointed out Hikari, not unreasonable.

"Or she," agreed Soi.

"But you're not... the others that - Reishun and Eian and Amefuri-"

"They chose to be reborn. Or in Amefuri's case, submitted to be bound by mortal existence because she was called upon to do so." This made no sense to Hikari, and Soi did not seem inclined to elaborate. The moved on. "I chose to not to be reborn, having suffered enough of the mortal coil the first time around. In fact none of us did, us Seiryuu warriors."

"Why not?"

Soi studied her for a long time. "Seiryuu's story is a bit different from all the others. The celestial god and his warriors exist to protect the maiden who is to be sacrificed to the god, for the greater glory of the country. It is not meant to be harnessed by anyone for selfish reasons. Kounan prospers now because the Miko was loyal to the country and the emperor," she tilted her head slightly towards Eian. "She did not choose love over her duty, though love chose her anyway. Her warriors loved her, deeply and without question. We never did. Our loyalty still does not lie with the Seiryuu no Miko, and her desires were never to save Kutou from damnation, so much as they were to gain revenge, to assuage her own sorrow. To acquire love by any means, even if it was a false love."

"What a coward," said Hikari.

"Yes," said Soi, as though this was a matter of fact. "We all were, on some level. So, you see, we failed. The country was not destroyed, but it still suffers and bleeds, from war and famine and death. We were lucky that the Suzaku no Miko was as forgiving as she was. But then she loved her friend very much-"

"Wait, what? My mother loved who very much?"

"Seiryuu no Miko," said Soi, patiently. "Hongo Yui."

Hikari opened her mouth in shock, but whatever she would have said was lost in the grander scale of things to a small explosion of blue light from somewhere behind them. And she heard, distinctively, as distinctively as she could hear the ghostly form of Soi speaking to her, a very familiar voice. It said, _"Okaasan!"_

Hikari turned, the shock of recognition shuddering through her as she gazed with expectation at the woods - almost as though she expected little Jun to walk out of the darkness, looking at her with familiar, infinitely curious dark eyes. There was no one there of course, though no amount of telling herself that could convince her now rapidly pounding heart otherwise. _Jun-chan.. that had been little Jun-chan._

* * *

Jun clamped his mouth shut the moment he'd called for his mother in shock, pressing the earring fiercely against his chest as he did so, trying to block out its fierce glow. He lay there, very still, his heart hammering against his rib cage out of combined shock and excitement. Moments passed, and the silence around him grew thicker. No one came.

Relieved, Jun opened his fist and stared at the earring. Hongo Yui, his mother, the Seiryuu no Miko? Was that even possible? He cast a look towards the door contemplatively. It is easier when one's notions of possibility have not been tarnished by the tedium of the everyday to consider the highly improbable and give it as much honest thought as the extremely likely. Jun thought about it, evaluating all that he knew in a manner that was just as systematic and well-organised as his mother, and decided that yes, indeed, it was possible.

The earring glowed more fiercely in his hand as he considered this, and he closed his fist around it. The voices became clear once more.

* * *

"Did you hear that?" demanded Hikari, standing now, looking around rather absurdly as though she expected little Jun to pop out of the woods. It was a mark of the sheer number of things that had happened that the idea that a little schoolboy would appear magically in a forest in Ancient China. She turned to glare at Soi, who was studying her in a scrutinising sort of manner. "Did you? Argh!" she emphasized, when Soi continued to study her silently. When it became evident that her enunciation had made no impact to speak of on the woman, she attempted to drive the point home. "Argh!" she stated, punctuating this by kicking a rock. "_Damn_ it! For god's sake!"

"You seem rather preoccupied with throwing a fit about how the universe is conspiring against you. Mighty unfair, if you ask - when all it's trying to do is to help you."

"Help itself, you mean," snapped Hikari, who believed it was time for someone to take stock of her issues in life and be sympathetic. This was, of course, not to be.

"Assisting you with the task that is assigned to you. Considering how much trouble it's in, you should be grateful-"

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Shocking." Soi's voice was touched with such sarcasm that even their unseen listener, who was six and not really prone to being too vastly ashamed about anything, felt a little abashed. "God forbid you actually step out of self-pity and attempt to see things from a different point of view."

Silence followed this, the kind of silence that Jun was subjected to when he did something he knew was terribly wrong and his mother caught him for it. It was worse, really, than his dad flipping out and yelling in a largely incoherent fashion. It was much, much worse to be placed at the receiving end of a Meaningful Silence of this kind.

Hikari, on the other hand, experienced no such horror. She experienced a painful and acute kind of annoyance, which may have been a defensive response to the guilt Soi was stirring up, but so far below the surface was this guilt that neither Soi nor she had any inkling of it. Mostly, she glared, and grew angrier still by how clearly unaffected the dead Seiryuu Seishi was by this display.

Eventually, Soi rolled her eyes and looked at Hikari with contempt. "Don't you understand?" she said, speaking a little slower as though to make sure that a person of such inferior intelligence too would understand. "The universe is dying. The time of prophecy has passed. All that remains of the great ancient stories are little fragments, memories that are dying and holy objects which will cease to have any meaning once those memories fade. There is only very limited time, time that you are squandering away by being utterly oblivious to anyone's suffering other than your own. You are one of the four holy objects. You are gifted, you have powers - and more importantly, you're alive, you breathe. You can choose what you do. So while other holy objects need to be protected, you can offer protection. That is what you're destined to do."

"But I don't _have_ any powers!" glowered Hikari.

"You found him, didn't you?" said Soi, still speaking slowly and with infinite patience, jerking her head towards the sleeping form of Eian.

"Again, with the finding things - I don't FIND things, I just happen to chance upon them-"

"And they are found," stated Soi, decisively. "Imagine what you could do if you actually looked."

Hikari opened her mouth and then closed it. There was a point where coincidences stopped feeling like cosmic jokes and even the most stubbornly oblivious of people was forced to acknowledge the fact that the universe wasn't trying to mess with them. With deep resentment and annoyance, but an equal amount of healthy alarm, she looked at Soi.

"And you can do more," said Soi. "Probably."

"Like what?" demanded Hikari, uncomfortable.

"I have no idea," said Soi, smoothly, making the girl let out a very unfeminine growl of frustration. Soi sat unmoving and observed her as she put her head in her hands and proceeded to sit very, very still. She was tired, clearly - so much so that important details were escaping her mind, like the fact that not a minute ago she'd been looking for the source of a child's voice. "Why," asked Soi, at great length, still speaking a bored, casual sort of manner, "didn't they tell you anything?"

And it was a long time before Hikari could answer. "No," she said, quietly, but the acid of her resentment scarred her voice. "No, they didn't."

* * *

They sat crossing names that Miaka vaguely recognised off a list of potential supporters for their 'cause'. These were the people that Houki believed would be loyal to Suzaku's legacy when the time came. The time for what, though, neither of them could exactly say, but there was an unmistakeable air of anticipation (and dread) in the room.

Twice, Houki had expressed disbelief at being reduced to a revolutionary, and both times Miaka had failed to see Houki as anything like a revolutionary. Certainly, she imagined that in her world, Houki would be the kind of person who stood before a tank all alone (or at least made sure that she stood next to the person standing before a tank so he wasn't all alone). But in her mind revolutionaries were rugged, wore T-shirts with bold slogans on them and painted crude graffiti on walls. When she told Houki this, the Queen Mother looked quite appalled.

Miaka then tried to remember from what Keisuke had said about Chinese history about revolutions. For the most of it, she didn't remember at all, but for some reason, the image of a large cheeseburger popped into her head everytime she thought about it. She discerned therefore that when Keisuke had been talking about this, they had been seated in some kind of fast food restaurant. This was not terribly helpful, particularly because she found herself quite hungry (and there was no solution to this problem in the middle of the night in the Palace at Eiyou - the idea of a "midnight snack" had not yet been invented, clearly).

But by the way Houki was fretting about it, she determined that being a person with revolutionary intent in Ancient China was a fundamentally bad thing. Certainly, sitting in the Palace and thinking of going against the King had something of a decadent sense about it. But on the the other hand, Miaka reminded Houki, they weren't planning to assassinate him or something drastic like that, and were just, on the whole, preparing for the worst. And though they had no idea what this worst could be, they had determined that it was much worse than they could have had a sense of. The recurring mythological figure in Yui's story and Hikari's dream was in particular quite troubling.

Not that there wasn't anything untroubling about this whole affair. It was easier to think about her empty stomach than about her daughter. That Nuriko and Nyan Nyan were with her was some comfort, but Miaka's stomach turned everytime her thoughts veered in that direction. Or about her husband, who admittedly could take care of himself - but really, where the hell was he? Miaka had made a career of worrying about Taka, really, and it was not easy to sit around crossing names off a list when he could be dear, or dying, or worse. Had she known that at this very moment, Taka's most pressing concern was Tasuki's inordinate snoring, she would have felt a lot better. But there wasn't, of course, any way for her to know this, and as a result, she thought extensively about cheeseburgers.

"Miaka?"

"Hm?"

Houki's face came into view, looking very like she was struggling to find the right words. Eventually, she settled on a tactful, "You're drooling just a little on my list."

"Oh!" said Miaka, blinking and looking down at the list. Indeed, the ink was smudged just a little in some places and Minister Wu's name was in the process of dissolving into oblivion. "Oh dear," she said, trying to wipe off the drool and proceeding to smudge the list up entirely.

"Here," said Houki, taking the list from her firmly and setting it aside. Being as she was unendingly tactful, she smiled and cut Miaka's apology off. "It's an effective disguise, at any rate. No one will incriminate us based on that."

Miaka grinned, and then they both lapsed into silence once more, looking studiously at inconsequential objects and trying to think of something to say. Miaka wanted desperately to speak, against the gnawing sensation in her chest, the sense of Wrong. But she could only think of cheeseburgers and that would probably be a bit confusing for Houki. Finally, she gave in and asked the question that had been bothering her for the last two days, ever since Boushin had deigned to speak to her directly (or yell at her; it took a person a lot more generous than Miaka to call that a conversation, as such).

"Are we becoming irrelevant, Houki?" she asked, rather quietly.

She looked up to find Houki looking more patiently curious than aghast, which was what she'd expected her to look. "What do you mean?" she asked, almost sounding gently encouraging.

"I mean... well." Miaka paused. Nakago had said it too; he had had the same doubts. It made Miaka very uncomfortable to have something in common with Nakago. "Do you think ... maybe there is a possibility that we're... you know, that we're fighting for a cause that's just no longer meaningful?" Houki looked at her steadily, but said nothing. Miaka pressed on. "The prophecies in the book have been fulfilled, so-"

"But the book called Hikari-chan here," Houki said, softly.

"Any creature on the verge of death struggles not to succumb to it," Miaka said, sounding so miserable that Houki had to struggle not to pat her on the head. "Why should the book be any different? And maybe-" She cut herself off. She had told Houki, of course, about her conversation with Boushin, but she had left out the parts she thought would hurt her the most. The part about the legend of Suzaku causing more death and destruction than anything else, she had not spoken of. Houki believed with all her heart in what Hotohori had stood for, after all; to have their son defy that and doubt it may be too painful.

"Maybe what?" Houki pressed her.

"Maybe this will cause more destruction than it will avoid," said Miaka, finally, not quite meeting Houki's gaze. She spoke as tactfully as she could but a lifetime of failing at putting things across gently made her absolutely sure that the Taihou knew exactly what she was talking about and could hear the subtext. Maybe people wil die, just like last time; maybe the task they were entrusted with was based on a failing logic. Indeed, the older woman said nothing for a long time, so long, in fact, that Miaka began to feel distinctively uncomfortable. Eventually, she looked up to find Houki looking thoughtful, as though she was seriously considering what Miaka had said.

Which was, Miaka reflected, the good thing about Houki. She always took you as seriously as she possibly could, and didn't make you feel invalidated simply because you had a contrary strain of thought.

Houki seemed to think this over carefully before she spoke, a few minutes later, shaking her head. "Miaka, you don't know what was happening before you came. You think the evil started when you opened the book, but for years Kounan and Kutou had been at odds, and Kutou's Emperor was taking measures that would have led to the destruction of a large part of the country. I don't presume to know the way the four gods work. But I think it's safe to say the country is better off."

"And Kutou?" said Miaka, looking at Houki. "Are they better off? They don't even have a proper ruler."

"I don't know," said the Queen Mother, quite honestly. "But they did not have a proper ruler even before, did they? Maybe a loose anarchy is a better option. Maybe something better will come of it."

"But what if it is actually worse now. Or, perhaps it is better, and what we're doing now will make it worse and plunge Kounan into civil war or worse?"

"It might," said Houki, in her calm manner, not making Miaka feel any better at all. "But would we be able to sit here and do nothing?"

Before Miaka could answer this, someone knocked on the door. The women froze. It was close to the smallest hours of the morning. There was no reason for anyone to be knocking on their door. Houki slipped the smudged list into her sleeve as Miaka stood and headed to open the door.

A short, beautiful woman stood outside, dressed elaborately and looking, on the whole, entirely innocuous and sweet. It was most suspicious, and just a little strange. Miaka recognised her vaguely as one of the girls from Boushin's harem as she bowed, not looking at her. "Pardon me," she said, in a graceful bow, not meeting her eyes out of what looked like practiced shyness. "I found these earrings in the garden and wanted to return it to Taihou-sama."

"Sure," said Miaka, holding out her hand expectantly.

The girl blinked, and looking up at her, before dropping a hankerchief folded around something heavier into Miaka's hand. Then, she bowed low and turned to leave.

"Wait," said Houki, in a shocked sort of tone, from behind her. "What did you just say?"

Though Miaka had no idea what this was about, having only heard the scruffy details of how Houki had got Hikari and Reishun out of prison, she suspected immediately from Houki's tone that something was wrong. Then, as the girl took one blindly panicked look at Miaka and turned quite abruptly to run down the corridor, she knew.

"Wait!" called Miaka, quite pointlessly, and took off down the corridor after her.

Later, she would feel quite stupid for having done so. The girl belonged to the harem and could just as easily be tracked down. But also, what the hell would she have asked her when she did track her down? Neither of these thoughts reached Miaka's brain at this point, who was very good at acting on impulse. Sometimes this was a good thing, of course, but this was not one of those times at all. The hankerchief still clasped tightly in her hand, she raced down the corridor.

At the turning, she perceived a large object, roughly of the shape and size of a gigantic amphora heading towards her head.

She did not have the time to duck.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Alright, it has been an eternity. I'm terribly sorry, not just for the TOTAL lack of editing, but also for the delay - though mostly I feel bad because it is REMARKABLY difficult to start writing after such a long break. Mostly, life happened - I went through a recording, a two-month job assignment, shifted houses (to a different city) and acquired another job - so... yeah, LOADS AND LOADS of stuff has happened. Which I think leads to this chapter being total crap. This chapter also does not contain all the stuff that I wanted it to, but I'm so sick of looking at it - the first few paragraphs were written back in November, inspired by my dad's snoring - that I think it's just time to post it and move on. I hope everyone's doing well, and thanks to everyone who's still been reading! I don't promise to post super quickly, but I do promise to try. Love and cookies!

**O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)**

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia - particularly about Eikoden and a specific element (or two) from Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.

**R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!**

Thanks for reading :)


	27. an interlude

**Meanwhile in Eiyou...**

Somewhere in between being whacked on the head with an amphora, losing his wife to some sort of time vortex and becoming involved in treachery to the crown, Chou Rokou had acquired a headache.

He remembered, with a sense of desperation and enormous distance, how Li Fen had brewed herbs into a concoction that worked magic on his head, which was prone to being a bit achy in general, Rokou's constitution being somewhat shaky and irritable at best. She would put cold towels on his head and make him the magic tea and everything in the world would seem less stressful. Now, of course, Li-Fen had disappeared into the Miko's world and Rokou had no idea how to bring her back. This was tragic and desperate. The fact that he also had no idea how to make his own tea, boil his own rice, manage the fabrics of his store and, in effect, feed and clothe himself without some sort of chaos unravelling over his respectable house, was a whole other kind of tragedy.

It occured to Rokou somewhere during his periods of anxiety and stress that perhaps this was really an alarming comment on how dependent he had been on his docile and very domestic... almost subservient wife. And really, he had never considered this, seeing as how he belonged to a space and time where there was a preponderance of subservient wives and the few who seemed to be able to refute this were either crazy or in possession of magical powers. Or, in the case of his brother, both. It was an agonising thing to realise this difficult sociological truth in the middle of stressful times. Rokou, who was really not the kind of fellow to dealt with sociological truths at all, did this with admirable coherence, all things considered. This however did nothing for the constantly gnawing headache.

It also did nothing to help him deal with everyday routines while he worked undercover for the Empress. In between visiting those that may still be loyal to the old Gods in the capital city of Eiyou and organise his clothing business, he had pretty much not had time to clean. As a result, when the soldiers came for him, he was bathing his splitting head in a bowl of cool water, wearing mismatched clothes and sitting in a space that could with some imagination be described as a living room, albeit one that looked like a small hurricane (in this case, Miaka) had raged right through the area.

They came through the modest wreckage of his life, crunching broken bits of amphorae further into the floor. They came looking ominous and fierce, and even though Rokou could recognise some of the faces amongst the six that stomped into his living room, there was no comfort to be found there. A sense of deep gloom settled in before he had the chance to get angry, and as he went through, mentally, the list of people who could have betrayed him, they anounced his crime of treason, punishable by death. This didn't quite register as much, as he set aside his cool towel and prepared to go with them. Death? That couldn't happen, could it? The Empress hadn't asked him to do this just so he could be killed, had she?

Yet, something cold and clammy settled in his gut as they led him out of his house, where still more soldiers waited. He frowned, raising an eyebrow at the sheer number of soldiers who had gathered to bring him in. It seemed unnatural to have so many gather to arrest him. Maybe it was his association with one of the Suzaku warriors, but, really, no one looking at him could have the impression that he was anything but a small time clothes merchant, which a total inability to defend himself. It seemed ridiculous... absurd, even, until, marching down with a small procession of soldiers, it occured to him that this was exactly what was intend. To turn him into something that could not be ignored... a spectacle.

* * *

_Author's Note:_ Yes... something's a-comin'.


	28. 26 Ame Ame Fure Fure

_(For anyone who is re-reading this, I edited the last bit. Turns out the old chapter, which I'd lost a year back, survived on a friend's hard disk, which he discovered a few weeks after I'd re-written this one. So I may be editting this chapter on and off, but nothing significantly changes (except the caliber of the writing, which was much better a year back... takes time to get into the groove, oy!))_

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Six**  
**Ame Ame Fure Fure**

* * *

_It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world._  
~ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ~

* * *

Taka awoke with a start, and sat up rubbing his head which really did feel like it had been thwacked by an amphora. He couldn't really put his finger on why he was so sure that it was an amphora and not an anvil or a soup bowl or Tasuki's tessen that he imagined had hit him, especially because there was no sign of any of those objects (except Tasuki's tessen, which gleamed almost innocously in the moonlight next to the snoring bandit) at all. It was just one of those things you Knew, like how he had Known that if he leapt with great force towards the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, it would swallow him whole, or how he Knew that it was better to not tell Miaka about the many instances that he'd hidden empty packets of chips in the couch and blamed it on Hikari.

He did not question it. At a point in his life, instinctive knowledge had blended with absurd reality and he had realised that it was quite possible that he was not really in charge of his "destiny and what not". He was something along the lines of a player in a elaborate and mysterious game (Author's Note: Apologies! Could not resist!) where the actual players acted out of cleverness and cunning and occasionally just plain old boredom. You learned, after realising that you were in fact the reincarnated version of a ancient Chinese warrior destined to be with the Miko who just happened to be a particularly bubbly High School junior, that everything happened for a reason. So why there was an amphora, how he had been hit with it without really being hit with it... these were not questions he asked.

Instead, he resigned himself to the sleeplessnessthat had plagued him since Tokaki had passed away and, with a brief scowl at Tasuki's regular grunty snores, rose quietly from his bed and let himself out of the room. He closed the door quietly behind him and turned to let out a not terribly manly squeal of horror at Subaru's looming form.

A brief moment later, he was rubbing his head and looking extremely relaxed. "Ahem, I mean," he said, in a deep voice, "what are you doing up so late, Subaru?"

"A little tea for your nerves, maybe," said the old Seishi, not unkindly, and moved past him. Taka spent a dignified moment considering making a fuss, but it was really quite late and you never said "no" to a kind offer of a cup of tea at this hour.

He followed her through peaceful corridors of the doujo. A sort of gentle quietness had fallen on the house after Tokaki's death, after Taka and Tasuki's original rather loud and raucous grieving. There was now a strong aura of kindness and acceptance in the house that was almost soothing, and it did not take too much dwelling on Taka's part to work out that this came from Subaru. He could not understand, though he imagined age had something to do with it. In a particularly foul moment, he had tried to imagine what he would have felt like if Miaka had died and he was the one left behind. To him, the silence of her wake seemed frightful and incomprehensible. And yet there was this gentleness about how Subaru grieved, that he really valued.

As he accepted the tea, he offered her a small wry smile, and she smiled back.

"So why aren't you sleeping?" she asked him, kindly, as one might a small child.

Taka grinned and then shrugged, allowing the sombre emotion he was experiencing to come to the surface. "I have a weird feeling," he said. "It's not the plan. Though the plan is also pretty weird," he added, as Subaru wiggled her expressive grey eyebrows. "It's just... I'm not sure what's happening."

They stood now in the balcony with the railing that had always been weak (despite repairs). There were so many conflicting memories and Taka found that his head was buzzing with images, of Tokaki shoving him into the river, many hours of practicing with his teacher... and then eventually defying the same teacher with his determination to be with Miaka. It was odd. It wasn't poignant or beautiful to think about this at all, there was really no poetry about the sorrow and how it reared up. Rather, there was something almost mundane and blunt about what he felt, something defiantly real and strange, a sort of finality about having lost someone who had known him through, it felt like, all his lives. And there was this awkward knowledge that maybe he hadn't really been lost at all - since Seishi were reborn. With the cumulative weight of the Plan and the lack of sleep, all of this presented itself to Taka like a jumble.

"Yes, there is a lot that is unknown," said Subaru, gently. She spoke with a lot of solidness, a kind of sureness. "I am worried, Taka. Not about your plan, because I think that will work. Don't look surprised," she added, mildly, not looking at him. "It's not a genius plan or very elaborate, but I think that's the beauty of it. But there the unknown quantity."

"The missing letters?"

"And the memories," she said, nodding. "I don't know which to fear more. The letters can be traced to the Empress of Kounan, and that could be very bad. The memories..."

Taka cut her off. They had gone over it a number of times, and no one could really agree on what had happened. It was easier to believe Tasuki's strong assertion that Subaru was just an old bat who'd forgotten. At the age of a hundred and twenty four, it wasn't a wild stretch of the imagination either. But Subaru seemed quite sure of what she did know, to the point that what she did not know was like a wide, black spot. "You said it was impossible for him to be alive," he pointed out. "You said you would have felt it."

"I don't know what to make of it," Subaru admitted, without any malice. "It may not be what I think it is... but I can't think of anything else... anyone else who could do this. It just worries me. But I suppose we can't always live with the benefit of a prophecy."

Taka nodded. "Yeah," he said, thinking of Japan and the ease of a life with no prophecy looming over their heads. There were times in one's life when the unknown was enough and exciting, and full of hope. And then there were times like this, when many unknown quantities came to plague you through the nights and you spent hours trying to work out the pieces of the puzzle. It was difficult especially because they had always had some sort of structure to their adventures in this world before. But at this point he knew nothing. And it scared the living hell out of him.

Subaru's worries were not baseless. Even he could admit that, even if he did not entirely understand her fears and where they came from. A small part of him believed that she was being silly. There had been no attack - no one had arrested her for treason, though with those letters, they would have had enough reason to. Even if those letters really had been stolen, maybe it was a good thing to have them out of the house. Maybe whatever had happened to her hadn't been an attack at all!

Subaru seemd lost now, though. The clouds parted in the sky, and the almost full moon shone down on them. "This place is beautiful in the moonlight," she said, and, in a moment of uncharacteristic affection, placed her arm on Taka's and falling silent for a long while thereafter.

* * *

It transpired that Eian was a morning person.

A ray of sunlight crept through the shady canopy of the forest, falling on his face and waking him. He blinked, and his amber eyes glittered in the sun, as his hair shone altogether too brightly for any hair attached the head of a person who had been coursing through the countryside in rain, muck and war. He stretched out looking with something that Hikari recognised, with no small measure of aggression, as Wonder With The Early Morning Light And How Glorious The World Looked. Eventually, he seemed to remember where they were, what had happened, who he was with and of course, most significantly, What This Meant. At which point he did something that set Hikari's frame of mind firmly against him for a long time to come.

He turned and smiled at at her, a brilliant smile that altered his face entirely. Eian did not have a face that was meant for lying, particularly since, Hikari decided sourly, he had a brain that probably thought honesty was honourable and other such wondrous things. His face change dramatically with the gesture, the exhaustion that had inhabited his eyes the previous night gone with the initial fury with which he had greeted Hikari. Now he was almost... almost bloody radiant.

In contrast, Hikari, who had failed to sleep all night, thanks to Tomo's ghostly sinuses, was bedraggled and unwashed. She was vividly conscious of her own decidedly less than radiant disposition, the rather urgent need for a bath and the fact that her hair was somewhat matted with dirt. She reached up subconsciously and found her suspicions confirmed when she pulled a twig out of her hair. She frowned, and then raised an eyebrow, though at whom she could not have said - at Eian and his stupid glow, at Reishun, who had probably seen all this a million times, or the fact that both Tomo and Soi were now hovering rather impolitely over Eian's head. She decided, quickly, that it was entirely Eian and his stupid hair.

"What, do you comb it everyday?" she demanded, glaring.

His expression altered to one of confusion. "What? I do not underst-"

"Your hair. Do you comb it everyday?"

"Wha-"

"When do you find the time?"

"I-"

"And why do you look so happy?" she demanded, almost growling with frustration.

"Well," he interjected, politely, but firmly. "I must apologise. I have, for the first time in what feels like days, slept dreamlessly and calmly. I certainly did not intend to anger you, but-" He fell silent, considering.

Hikari squinted at him suspiciously. "But?" she prompted, not remotely mollified by his calm and rather well-mannered words.

Eian lowered his head. "I did not intend to sleep at all, as it were. I apologise for that. But I have been haunted by nightmares for many days now, since I left the palace," he confessed, with bluntness and openness that Hikari hardly expected from an almost complete stranger, "and you, it seems, have chased them away."

Hikari glared suspiciously, more because she was at a loss for words, but also partly because Tomo was now hanging upside down next to Eian and grinning in a manner that could leave no doubt as to who had caused these nightmares. "Damn it," muttered Hikari.

"Pardon?"

There was a polite way to respond to this, she was sure, not only because it eluded her completely but also because he spoke in a manner that indicated structure. His politeness was the kind that was, in some ways, part of a game - a game of manners. Hikari almost cast about for her own manners, prompted by his display of chivalry and kindness, but caught herself just in time. Her grumpy mood was pretty much the only thing she had any control over at this point, and she was absolutely determined to cling to that. "How the hell have I done that?"

"Well," he said, in the tone of a polite suggestion, "you found me-"

"I did NOT!" Hikari exploded. After what felt like a lifetime of considering Nyan Nyan's crazy words and their implication, interjected with Soi's suggestions about her supposed fricking powers, Eian had hit upon exactly the worst thing to say. "I DO NOT FIND THINGS. I WAS GUIDED HERE."

If her yelling distressed Eian, he did little to indicate this. "I see," he said gravely, wih two ghosts hovering a little bit above his head.

"No, you don't! You don't see! You don't even see these stupid-" But she remembered Soi's request and held back. "ARGH. YOU DON'T SEE!" she concluded.

Eian tilted his head. "Alright..."

"ALRIGHT?!" Hikari felt flustered and somehow absurdly outnumbered. She was tired. She wanted to sleep and she wanted to go home. Neither of these things seemed likely to happen for a very, very long time, she decided, so enormous was the pain in her head and the pain in her arms. Someone would have to knock her out. Damn it. Damn it all to hell and beyond. And there was Eian, nodding along like this made perfect sense. "What do you mean "alright"?!"

"I accept that I do not know what I do not see," said Eian, so gravely that she couldn't possibly tell if he was mocking her. "Nonetheless, here you are and your coming seems to have stopped my nightmares."

Hikari opened her mouth. "And you know what you could do with your damne-"

"Don't you think," said Soi, from her position next to Eian, "that perhaps you should find your useless pestilent friends?"

Hikari closed her mouth, and cleared her throat. "Perhaps," she said, in an extremely strained voice, "we should find my usele- damn it. We should find Reishun and Amefuri now that you've rested and emerged with shiny... damned shiny hair," she almost sobbed.

To his credit, Eian did not respond to her with anything more than a grave nod. If he thought of her behaviour as odd, he did little to betray this. This did nothing to soothe Hikari, who was offended by his hair and his manners and his radiance. Stupid boy, Hikari decided. And that was the problem of course.

As she stood, dusting off her rather mucky garb, she found that her predicament was a lot more precarious than previously thought. The fact was, and this was indisputable, that Eian, shiny hair and all, was a boy. This was a marked difference from all her previous travelling companions (except the brief interlude with Chichiri), who had all been, well, girls. Hikari, as grumpy as she was, was still only thirteen and despite her tendencies to hit various male classmates when they broke Hanako's heart, she was somewhat shy about some more significant bodily needs. As her bladder readjusted to the sudden greater pull of gravity, thus, Hikari found herself frowning, at a bit of a loss.

"Is everything alright?" asked Eian, politely.

Hikari glared at him and then nodded. "Yes, let's go," she said.

* * *

Even the thick cover of the forest could not keep the sun's rays out once it had travelled to the center of the sky. Hikari was grateful. There was a chill in the air here, in Kutou, which Kounan had not really been afflicted with. The night had been chilly despite the fire that Eian had built for them. With the sun's rays warming her arms now, Hikari felt somewhat better.

Eian had proved to be a gentleman, and placed her on the horse. When she had promptly fallen off, having no experience whatsoever with horses, he tightened the stirrups and walked with one hand on her back, much to her chagrin, until he was convinced that she would not fall off. Soi and Tomo brought up the rear of their party, looking strange, ethereal and somehow quite disconcerting.

Hikari hadn't brought up the subject of ghosts again. Eian had not believed her when she had mentioned them before and she really did not need the Suzaku seishi to believe she was completely nuts. Soi's recounting of the rivalry between Suzaku and Seiryuu had also made her reconsider. One didn't want any more drama than was strictly necessary, really, and she somehow sensed that the two Seiryuu seishi would be a lot less helpful (not that they were being particularly useful, presently bickering about the merits and demerits of something that sounded like "Nakago", which she had wisely elected not to ask them about) if she told Eian about them. He would put two and two together eventually, she knew; even under bright and shiny hair like his was some manner of a brain. And he would know that they had caused his nightmares. Nyan Nyan could keep them in check, and Eian was probably best off not knowing.

If there was any part of her that had scruples about this, it took a backseat to her very pressing need to pee, and thus all was well. Hikari had learned that Eian, of all people, had been the Emperor in his previous life. She had no desire whatsoever to share with a former Emperor, who spoke in a deep baritone and had shiny hair, the state of her bladder.

Thus, by the time they stopped, Hikari was on the verge of crying.

Eian raised his hand to shush her as she opened her mouth to ask 'what', and she paused, raising an eyebrow. She knew that gesture. In all old adventure movies, it was the gesture universally used by heroes when they were about to do something heroic and wanted their respective damsels to silence themselves. She grumped.

Sure enough, a moment later, Eian drew his sword. "Stay here," he instructed. "I'll be right back. And you," he glared at Nyan Nyan, "watch her."

"Hai Hotohori-sama!"

"Wait, wha-"

But Eian was gone, leaving behind silence in his wake. What he had heard, Hikari could not, though there was a certain rustling in the trees that made the forest seem somewhat restless. "Damn it."

"SHH!" said Nyan Nyan, loudly.

"There is a battle," said Soi, calmly, as though commenting on the weather. "Perhaps your friends are involved."

"Then go help them!" demanded Hikari, though an instant later she found herself somewhat abashed. These were, after all, the ghosts of warriors much greater and definitively much older than herself. She couldn't command them anymore than she could find things. Soi looked at her narrowly for a moment, as though about to say the same thing. Then, much to Hikari's surprise, she turned and dragged Tomo off with her.

The forest was quiet in their wake. It was several moments before Hikari could close her mouth and look around somewhat abashed. "I didn't do that."

"Kowaiineechan did!" affirmed Nyan Nyan, like a self-help book. "Well done!"

Hikari glared at her. "I am still not talking to you," she said, flatly, and ignored the huge watery eyes that looked at her like a lost puppy.

The wind rustled through the trees, and now, perhaps because she knew there was a battle, she could feel the tension in the air. This, she decided, was her chance. No battle was so short as to not allow a bystander to go behind the bushes. Determined, she swung her leg over and rolled off with a total lack of grace. "Damned horse!" she glowered, though the horse was unaffected. She made to get up but a large pink watery-eyed thing slammed into her nose and bowled her over.

"KOWAIINEECHAN GO NOWHERE!"

"But I must," protested Hikari.

"NO!" said Nyan Nyan, popping into her full sized girl form and sitting on Hikari with great determination. This did not help.

"NYAN NYAN!"

"NO!"

"I'm not going to the battle! I just need to p-" she cut herself off. Nyan Nyan was looking at her with such determination that Hikari was convinced this was a lost cause.

Unbelievably, she drifted off. It had certainly been about a day since she'd slept, but with all that was going on, sleep had seemed very far away. Without Tomo's locomotive-esque snoring, though, she found she could snooze quite comfortably. A snug warm darkness reached for her from the earth and swallowed her into a cocoon of respite, not dreamless but quite restful. It felt a little like falling, she would later realise, as she had fallen when Nyan Nyan had dragged her under to make her SEE, though she was not unwilling. This was a more restful place than the thorny shrubbery she had crashed into before, full of walking rocks. The rocks here did not move, though a few of them glowed faintly green. The trees were much greener, and here, in this state of consciousness, she became a lot more aware of the tree that she was sleeping her, a huge banyan with a sense of ancient calm and wisdom.

A part of her wanted to snooze against its trunk and tell it all her woes.

Voices became somewhat distinct after a while, cutting into her very clear dream, and though she didn't want to leave this space of very brief rest, she found that she was being pulled back by awareness. The voices were very familiar, and drew her attention away from Nyan Nyan's weight very close to her bladder.

"..can't believe it's you!" said one voice, bright and hopeful and awed. "How did you find us?!"

"I heard a ruckus in the woods," said a deeper voice, sounding somewhat awkward.

"And it's so lucky that you did. Who knows what would have happened if you hadn't come along, Eian. Isn't that right Amef- Wu Ming?"

Somewhere in the vicinity, the thunder grumbled like an upset stomach, and Hikari opened her eyes. Reishun!

Reishun, seemingly completely oblivious to this sudden and ominous change in the weather, pressed on. "I'm so glad you're here. I just know that everything will be alright now. You saved us!"

The thunder growled more decisively, but fortunately Reishun had spotted Hikari.

"HIKARI!"

Hikari managed to straighten up in time to be bowled over by a very enthusiastic Reishun, who forgot how strong she was and hugged Hikari so hard that the thirteen year old could almost feel her bones grinding against one another. For once, though, she did not complain, hugging back with just as much enthusiasm, albeit without the natural ability to squeeze the life out of Reishun. "I was so worried!" Reishun said, clinging.

"Nggghshfrrlkghgh!" said Hikari, and Reishun, understanding immediately (this wasn't a new situation for her, after all; she did have a tendency to hug people very tightly), loosened her grip. "I was so worried too! It's all Nyan Nyan's fault, stupid little idiot-"

"No, no, she was totally right to take you away! We met a group of bandits!"

"She plonked me into the thorniest part of the forest!"

"We had to fight our way out and Amefuri started to faint all over the place!"

At this point of time, thunder rolled noisily, furiously overhead and Reishun looked up nervously.

Hikari had more pressing news. "I met a walking rock!"

"We worked out that the nine-headed snake can actually turn into a thousand little snakes and that's how he was controlling all the bandits!"

"I saw two ghosts!"

"I... collected Donghai?"

"What?"

They both paused and looked towards the rest of the party. Hikari wondered what Reishun saw, and if it was even remotely as ridiculous as what she saw. Nyan Nyan was hovering over Eian's head, crying, looking much like her mother had when little puppies were born, her face all scrumped up and her eyes enormous. Eian did not seem to know what to do, but shivered dismally every two seconds, as Tomo tickled his ear with a feather. Soi, standing next to them, looked bored. Amefuri looked like she was about to burst into a thunderstorm, and an exceptionally rotund individual, who could only be Donghai, stood looking as awkward as a bandit could.

"I really have to pee," said Hikari, solemnly.

Reishun turned back to look at her.

A moment passed, and then, against all logic, they burst out laughing.

* * *

Despite the numerous people in the woods out to kill them, Reishun decided that she was quite elated. Hikari was safe (though grumpy and, admittedly, in pain from her healing injuries), no one had died, Amefuri had eaten almost two whole meals through the day, Donghai was helping her with the cooking and they had found Eian. Or, well, Eian had found them, which was somehow better and more fitting.

There was a certain aura that one associated with heroes, an aura that was congruous with shiny hair, big swords, chivalrous behaviour that inspired one to be stupid enough to offer a certain Byakko Seishi help. Eian embodied all of these things. He wouldn't leap into a fight without some kind of plan. Even his impromptu "rescue" had entailed a quality of order and organisation and Wise Plans. He had saved them, Reishun decided happily. It was poetic and perfect, or ... something - anyway, the point was, Eian was here and they were going to have this adventure together and no one was dead, damn it! She tossed a fiercly cheerful grin at Hikari, who looked at her suspiciously and scowled. Never mind! Happy she was. Grr.

They sat around in a circle, and had spent the last hour or so sharing stories, a process through which Amefuri studied the ground and Hikari studied the space to Eian's left. Eian, it appeared, had been travelling through the country with the Shinzaho just as Empress Houki had told them. He had heard, while spying on one of the gangs of bandits in the forests, of the Book being destroyed in many parts of the land, and rumours that there were some copies in a land to the East of Kutou. "That's where I was heading before I felt your presence in this country, Hikari-ch-erm-sama," he finished.

At which point, Hikari visibly started and blinked away from the space to his left, looking at him somewhat guiltily. "What? I mean, wait, yes. I mean I know. You said that. I know. Right."

Reishun raised her eyebrows, watching the girl. There was something off about Hikari, something more frazzled with the state of the world than normal, and Reishun couldn't quite put a finger on it. She had mentioned walking rocks and ghosts, but not cared to elaborate thereafter, particularly in Eian's presence. Reishun had a sense that something was up - clearly - and that, much like the troubles of her bladder, it wasn't something she wanted to discuss with Eian. So she left it at that, for the time being, and instead focused on Eian. Happy, right? Issues that plagued her relationship with him had paled in significance - she no longer wanted to ask him why he hadn't written back, or think about his affiliation to Houki. These thoughts niggled vaguely at the back of her mind, but it was easy to ignore this niggling.

"Yes," agreed Eian, gravely, as though this wasn't completely weird. "So I think I should continue to head East on my quest and you should hide, all of you, until I return."

There was a brief silence, in which Hikari, still sort of distracted by the space to the left of Eian's head, said nothing, and Reishun found herself struggling with contrary urges - to accept Eian's plan and to argue for her wanting to be with him, nearer him. The niggling at the back of her head grew stronger, and she shook her head.

Before she could speak though, Amefuri looked up. "That's ridiculous," she said, flatly.

"Yeah, we can't let you go off on your own like that," agreed Reishun, more concerned.

"What if you fail?"

"Wh- nono," Reishun shook her head, cringing.

"Who's going to get the Book back then? And aren't you already charged with the task of protecting the Shinzaho?"

"I assure you, I am quite competent with my sword-"

"Yes, you are," said Reishun, placatingly. "Of course you are, but we just-"

The thunder rumbled a little as Amefuri raised an eyebrow. "That is irrelevant. There will be one of you and several hundreds of them. This is too important to risk on the basis of your competence."

"Amefu- Wu Ming," said Reishun, amending herself a little too late.

The woman's eyes flashed. "Don't be blind," she said, callously. "You're only looking at what you want to see. Everybody can fall and he's not immortal or incorruptible."

Somehow this made sense. Logically, of course, it made sense. Reishun still had the strongest desire to poke Amefuri with a stick however. "I really don't think you need to be so ... crude," she pointed out, fumbling a little. "He is quite competent, you know, we were outnumbered in the woods and he-"

"He DIDN'T save us, for god's sake!" Amefuri exploded. "We had it covered!"

"That's not-"

But Amefuri was on her feet by now. The sky was overcast, and no one, looking at her, could really doubt that she had anything to do with it. So much for being discreet. "I am going to chop some wood," she snapped, at no one in particular.

"But your shoulder!" protested Reishun.

"I thought we couldn't have a fire," offered Donghai, with remarkably bad timing.

"Please, let me," said Eian, but before he could get to his feet, Amefuri had shot them all a look sour enough to curdle milk, and stalked off muttering something about 'bloody Suzaku warriors'.

Reishun watched her go, oddly uncomfortable. It took her a moment to realise that she was, for no reason, on the verge of tears. The Byakko seishi was impossible, damn it! There was something severely stupid about ... bloody Wu Ming and her stupid fake names. Then she remembered what she had seen the day before, and reminded herself that Amefuri had very good reason for her fake name and exaggerated defiance. She stared at the retreating shape with an odd twist in her stomach.

The problem with wanting to look at the positive side of things, Reishun reflected, was that sometimes you were just inventing stuff and it could become very exhausting after a while. This uncharacteristically depressing thought had the Suzaku Seishi frowning and rubbing her face.

"I think I want to chop some wood too," said Hikari, presently, looking almost relieved at the proposition. She got up and left, with Nyan Nyan trailing after her in a blaze of pink, singing, "_Kowaiineeeeeechaaaaan_..."

Donghai stared after them, and then cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Well, this is awkward," he announced, tactlessly. "I'm going to go do something irrelevant as well!"

It took him a moment to get to his feet, but he waddled off, cauldron in hand. What he intended to do with it, Reishun did not know, but she was almost sorry to see him go. For all her long-term planning and strong desire to be alone with Eian and talk to him, she had very little to say presently. You could go looking for the love of your life all you wanted, but that did not equip you to talk to them properly when you found them. Suddenly everything she had to say was either too monumental or too trivial to articulate. And there was a deep wound of confusion and something like resentment that she didn't even want to poke at. Eian, for his part, said nothing. He looked troubled, and quite obviously awkward, but didn't seem particularly talkative.

Reishun cleared her throat. "They're not always like that," she said.

Eian nodded.

"I mean, they are kind of... insane, but-"

Eian looked at her. She swallowed.

"I mean," she pressed on, "Donghai I don't really know that well, but he's quite a nice person. He seems very intuitive too, though Am- Wu Ming will tell you otherwise. Which makes sense perhaps - he is a bandit and his band did try to kill us, which... well. But they didn't!" she pointed out, the cheer in her voice sounding strained. "I... yeah. And don't worry about Wu Ming. She's not... she isn't really-" But something in her wouldn't let her make excuses for the Seishi. Somehow, she knew the woman wouldn't appreciate it.

"She seems well-versed in the martial arts," said Eian, after a long moment of contemplative silence, "for a woman."

Reishun raised both eyebrows, suddenly aware of a completely unknown desire. It would be several days before she would recognise it as a deep, unquestionable desire to poke Eian between the eyebrows. "Er."

"I wonder who trained her. Few women are capable of gaining such competency-"

"She is a Byakko Seishi," pointed out Reishun, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, exactly," he said, sounding detached and clinical in how he sort of diagnosed Amefuri, and, in some ways, women in general. Reishun frowned, as she realised that that hadn't been the point at all. It was sort of like saying women without the benefit of being a Seishi couldn't be martial artists, which was not what she had intended to say at all. "Tokaki must have trained her."

"I think he did," said Reishun, beginning to feel something she had never felt in the context of Eian. Or in the context of Amefuri, really. A burst of protectiveness, which also inspired her to say very little else in the context of Tokaki. The Byakko seishi she had never known - in either life, as it happened - had died a day or so before Amefuri had come upon them in the woods. It had rained for days, poured down in a cacophonous outpouring of all the grief that the woman pigheadedly refused to display at all. There were reasons for that guardedness, Reishun now knew. The sky itself opened up for her grief, alluding to how deep the wound ran. Reishun said nothing; she didn't somehow want to discuss Amefuri with Eian.

Feeling irrationally annoyed with herself, she rubbed her head. "Well, at least we have all the Shinzaho now," she said, changing the subject pointedly. "The Empress must really trust you."

Eian said nothing, and Reishun inwardly sighed. She hadn't meant anything by that! ...or, okay, she had, but it was a Very Small Something, damn it, no need to make a Very Big Silent Elephant out of it. Now there was an elephant sitting on a wall, surrounded by a moat with a nine-headed serpent floating around in it, between them. To add to this, an awkward silence descended on them, swelling up with characteristic relish as she resisted the urge to bang her head on the nearest rock.

"May I see them?" she asked, finally, though she had no huge desire to look at the Shinzaho. Something about the idea of seeking out a Shinzaho put a sense of peril and revulsion in the pit of her stomach, and for some reason reminded her of wolves.

"Yes," said Eian, sounding almost relieved by this, except that it wouldn't have been particularly gentlemanly to sound relieved at this conjuncture.

He reached for his bag and emptied its contexts. The first thing that fell out was a beautiful, if elegantly simple, comb.

"That's lovely!" said Reishun, reaching for it. "Is that-?"

But Eian pressed an ornate round mirror into her hand. "The Shinzaho of Byakko," he announced, as the comb disappeared into his bag. A small slightly luminiscent blue earring followed this. "And Seiryuu."

The objects gleamed in her hands even without the benefit of the sun shining down on them (the sky had been cloudy since Eian had joined them), as though lit up by their own power. They didn't feel remarkably different in her hands, though her stomach jumped a little bit when he put them in her hands. Whether this was because of the objects, or the buildup, or the fact that it had been Eian who had put them into her hands, she did not know.

She looked up at Eian, expectantly, waiting for him to hand her the Shinzaho of Genbu. Then, she frowned.

The expression on his face was one of alarm and horror, as he felt about the bag frantically. There were things you did not want to see on the face of the man entrusted with guarding the Shinzaho, and that particular expression of wide-eyed alarm was one of them.

"You've-"

"I haven't!" said Eian, his voice wobbling off the even plain it had danced on all day. "I couldn't have!"

"-_lost_ _the Shinzaho of Genbu?!"_ finished Reishun.

* * *

Amefuri was chopping wood with fury that scared Hikari. There was quite a lot about the woman that was a little unsettling, but the fact that she could weild an axe with a hole in her shoulder was one of them. As she chopped, she muttered, and Hikari caught words like "idiot" and "man" and "Suzaku's fools" as she came closer to where the Byakko seishi was, leaving Reishun and Eian to their conversation and Soi and Tomo to torture Donghai.

A vague part of her, the socially conscious part (a small portion, really), was aware of the fact that she had been somewhat rude to Eian. This bothered her to no huge extent. There was something about his lack of questions about Reishun, his total lack of awareness (or perhaps his conscious disregard) of how she treated him that was frustrating to Hikari. Perhaps not as frustrating as Reishun herself, of course, whose behaviour was so reminiscent of Hanako's at the cusp of a romantic meltdown that Hikari wanted to find a seventh grade mathematics textbook to hit her on the head with (the one time Hanako had experienced such a meltdown was also the one time the textbook had been useful at all).

Hikari stepped on a leaf, at which Amefuri whisked around, wielding the axe dangerously over her head, inspiring the thirteen-year-old to throw herself bodily on the ground and yell something that sounded very much like "ARP!"

"_What_?!" demanded Amefuri, growling.

"Don't kill me!" Hikari squeaked, quite alarmed.

Amefuri stared at her incredulously for a moment, and then lowered the axe. "I'm not going to kill you!" she snapped, furiously. "I spent days protecting you, which I did well, and I NEVER needed rescuing while doing it, damn it, so why would I kill you!?"

Nyan Nyan floated between them, a relaxed kind of pink.

Hikari raised an eyebrow. "Are you upset about Reishun and Eian?" she ventured, but this seemed like a bad idea too. Conversing with Amefuri was like having a symphony of really bad ideas, with disastrous and explosive consequences.

"Who the hell cares!? I don't care. I don't care if they go prancing around naked in the woods with colours of melody springing out of their arses!" yelled Amefuri, incomprehensibly.

Hikari blinked. "What?"

"I don't care," said the woman, clearing her throat, glowering.

Hikari blinked again, trying to find something intelligent and non-disastrous to say. This, she thought, might be an opportune moment to tell someone other than Soi that the earring was talking to her. But the moment passed by rather swiftly. Before she could do anything at all, Amefuri had turned away sharply from her to face the wood. She hacked at it, though for all the wildness in her movements, the wood chopped up into neat little slices. There was a method about Amefuri, after all, for all her anger. The anger in itself seemed to have its own intelligence, it's own logic. In the few days that Hikari had known Amefuri, she had watched her fight soldiers, civillians and innocuous objects like bags and pieces of wood with exactly the same kind of intensity. That intensity seemed to give her a a method, as though she could look at anything at all and assess the best way to go about destroying it neatly. Of course, Hikari had no way of knowing how close she had come to losing control in the woods when fighting Donghai's gang, and so her sense of the Byakko Seishi remained unaltered.

"You do know it was you who said we can't have fire, right?" she asked, presently, only to be ignored solidly. _Chop. Chop. Chop_. And the bits of wood fell on either side of the log. "I sort of see what you mean. Eian is a ponce and Reishun can't really see it. Do you know how much time he spends on his hair?" She sniffed. "I don't know, I mean. But it must be a lot to have such wonderful and shiny hair in the middle of the forest like this. We all look disastrous. Even Reishun, though she manages to look disastrous in that elegant sort of way, you know?"

She turned to look at Reishun speculatively, and thus missed that Amefuri did the same, with an altogether different expression on her face.

"I mean, how does she do it? How do any of them do it? Reishun and my mom and Hanako- who's my friend from back home."

But speaking about Hanako was painful, and so Hikari stopped. Nyan Nyan came and settled on her shoulder and they sat their in silence, as the chop-chop-chopping of Amefuri's axe formed a sort of rhythm. Hikari thought of home, though she said nothing. She thought of her mother, who was so far away, and her father, who was in this world but nowhere to be found. How long had it been since she had dropped into the book? She had lost track, really, but it felt like a million years; not because she had fundamentally changed (Hikari didn't think people could change completely without losing some part of themselves), but because so much had happened, irreconciliable and frustrating and traumatising things, which a thirteen-year-old needed time to deal with.

Something about the rhythm of the axe meeting the wood and thoughts of home triggered a memory. A song she had heard a long time ago, though the words eluded her. She couldn't quite put a finger on what it was, but it niggled at her brain, like A Thought That Must Be Thunk. And so she began to hum.

"La la la la, dum ti dum dum, laaa laaa laaaaa,  
Janome de omukai ureshii naa..  
Pichi pichi, chappu chappu, ra ra raaaaa!  
Ame ame fure fure kaasa- _oh_."

Hikari stopped, staring steadily at the ground, as she became steadily aware of hostile energy burrowing into her head. The chopping of the axe had stopped, and it was with great trepidation that Hikari looked up, with her best sheepish expression in place, to meet the thunderous look on Amefuri's. "It's a song in my world, we... sing it sometimes, I... didn't realise I was... sorry," she finished, cringing.

Amefuri opened her mouth to say something but stopped. Rather suddenly, she cocked her head to the side, looking like one of her mother's daycare doggies post-sneeze. It would have been comical if not for the fact that, in the next instant, Hikari heard it too.

The arrow whizzed through the air and landed by her feet.

Amefuri grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up.

"Run," she said, and they ran.

* * *

_"Miaka..."_

_A very round object swam dangerously close to her face and then faded away as she grunted._

_"Miaka?"_

_Yes, she thought, surprisingly lucid given that she'd just been bumped on the head with a gigantic amphora. That was her name indeed, and there was really no reason for Chichiri to say it repeatedly, with varying degrees of alarm and worry in his tone. She was listening to him. She wasn't really up to opening her eyes yet, but she was listening._

_"Miaka?"_

_With great, concentrated effort, she cranked open an eye and glared at the monk. The one-eyed glare was something she'd learned from her daughter, who had mastered it at an early age. An effective tactic, when you wanted to convey that you were NOT awake but QUITE annoyed. Chichiri stared at her with such bewilderment that she found her alarm fading somewhat. "What?" she demanded, not remotely sounding likethe embodiment of sweetness and light that most people would have remembered her for. As Chichiri's face altered to one of greater bewilderment, she found herself somewhat remorseful. "Sorry," she offered. "It's just that an amphora just hit me on the head."_

_"An amphora?" asked Chichiri, as though this was a new concept._

_"Well, I imagine someone was wielding it, but the sum total is that an amphora collided with my head and why," she paused to take a breath, raising an eyebrow at Chichiri, who had never really looked quite as perplexed as he did presently, "are you looking at me like that?"_

_Chichiri cleared his throat, looking somewhat embarrassed as he registered that he was ogling. "I'm sorry," he said. "But are you really here this time or is this another strange dream?"_

_Miaka blinked, raising the other eyebrow. What was he talking about? Of course she was here - she'd been whacked on the head with an amphora and then... She blinked again. And then what? It took effort of the kind she didn't wish to exert at the moment, but she pulled herself up to look around. They were sitting by the lake near the Palace in Eiyou, the sun beating down on them. "I think I'm here?" she offered, finally, a little perplexed herself. Really, it was pretty simple - she was either there or she wasn't, and for the most of it, she couldn't imagine where else she could be. Then, because Chichiri had asked such an odd question to begin with, she tilted her head and looked at him. "Are you dreaming?"_

_"Ah, I- I honestly don't know," said Chichiri, in a manner that was uncharacteristically unlike Chichiri as far as Miaka could make out._

_"You said "another strange dream"," she prompted him, concerned._

_"Yes, well, those were strange dreams."_

_"What happened in those dreams?" asked Miaka, tilting her head._

_"I... you said weird things."_

_"That's very vague," pointed out Miaka, helpfully. "And not really a way to distinguish dream from reality."_

_"I know, but you said very weird things, which made no sense."_

_"And that's not really a way either..."_

_Chichiri half smiled, a strained sort of smile, and then looked at her seriously. "So you're really here?"_

_"I suspect as much," said Miaka, much more gently. A conversation with Chichiri that didn't make you want to shake the "no da"s out of him once and for all was unheard of. "How did I wander into your dream, though?"_

_But this made him look almost embarrassed. "I don't have much of an idea about directions lately.. I'm sorry Miaka."_

_He sounded so defeated that Miaka breeched the normally distinctive personal space boundaries she maintained with Chichiri and put a hand on his shoulder. Then she frowned, as it occured to her that there was no 'normally' - she hadn't seen Chichiri in over thirteen years. And now here she was, in a place that she was almost sure wasn't real, talking to him in his dream. It felt uniquely generic, though that perhaps was enough of a sign that there was nothing normal about it._

_"Sorry about what?" she asked, deeply bothered by his attitude._

_"I've failed you. I couldn't help your daughter - and I've lost my way. I can't find Taiitsukun."_

_Miaka patted his shoulder. "Reishun - Nuriko - found Hikari. And Nyan Nyan is with them. They should be alright," she said, with more certainty than she honestly felt. "And I'm sure you'll find your way back, Chichiri. You're the most perceptive of us all-"_

_"That's just it," said the monk, looking stressed. "I think I'm a prisoner somewhere. And you-" He stopped and looked at her hand on his shoulder. Then, he looked at her inquiring face and took a deep breath. "In my dreams, you keep telling me to do what you ask. But you've not asked me to do anything... or have you, and have I forgotten-?"_

_"I haven't," said Miaka, blinkling. "I would remember. Or would I?" she added, a little unhelpfully._

_"So why do you keep saying it?"_

_Miaka shook her head. "I don't know," she said, apologetically. "Maybe I'll tell you when I know myself." Then, before this could get more confusing, she pressed on, "Where are you, Chichiri? We can come and get you..." It was absurd, but Miaka was used to making absurd things happen. You couldn't live life with the assumption that things COULDN'T be done, after all. Miaka, of course, had a lot of experience with starting out with nothing but a broad agenda, such as "rescue Yui!" or "make sure Tamahome's okay!" or "find cheeseburger!". "Rescue Chichiri!" in her head functioned in much the same way._

_Chichiri did not quite see it in the same way. "No, you need to help Hikari-chan. I will find my own way back," he said, and it was clear he spoke with more surety and firmness than he felt. Compelled by his vulnerability - and moved, because it was technically a dream, even if it wasn't her own dream - Miaka did something she'd never done and put her arms around the monk. He went still for a second and then, in the manner of a very old, very true friend, rested his head on her shoulder. "Even if I have to break out of prison to do it."_

_Miaka nodded. "That sounds like a plan," she said, somehow convinced. Something tugged at her mind, and she frowned. "I think I must go soon," she said, but as Chichiri looked troubled, she reached out for him. Alarmingly, her hand went right through him - or perhaps his arm went right through hers, and despite this, the strangely non-corporeal experience was highly tangible. Miaka had a sneaky suspicion they were really here, and this wasn't one of Chichiri's dreams, or even one of hers (which was notable because neither Hikari nor food, or the absence or presence thereof, was hugely a factor)._

_Miaka! _the distant voice called, agitated, and she shook herself, and Chichiri was gone.

"Miaka!"

"Wha-what?!" she asked, disoriented by the sudden slap of gravel and coldness, of tangibility. She felt a bit weird, like she'd just been dosed strongly with reality and yet somehow she knew it was all rather immaterial. She had had, she recognised with some distance, something of a spiritual experience. Those were always a bit sobering and awkward to come back from. She remembered returning from the book a changed woman, a woman with a lack of desire for worldly affairs, for about a week until Keisuke brought her a cheeseburger.

Oooh. Yum.

"Are you snickering? Are you crazy? Do you know where you are?!"

She sat up with considerable difficulty and looked around. It was quite dark, but her eyes adjusted to the small slivers of light that crept through the dungeon and the shadows cast across the floor of her prison cell. "Oh, bloody hell," she muttered.

"Yes, hello!" snapped Rokou, supremely stressed. "We're in prison! How did you get here? I've been trying to wake you for hours! But you just kept mumbling and grinning - have you sort of lost it?"

"That's quite possible," she said, cringing and rubbing her head. But Miaka, drowsy as she was, was beginning to register the severity of the situation. How the hell had she managed to get to prison!? The last thing she remembered before her conversation with Chichiri was the bloody amphora. And- "Rokou?" she asked, a little stupidly.

"Yes," said Rokou, through gritted teeth. "Do you realise what's going on!?"

The glow of her meeting receded sharply, leaving her in the dark grey cell. "I- the soldiers..."

"The soldiers brought me here," said Rokou, speaking quite fast. "You were already here when I came, but I think we're being charged with the same crime, of treason. Against the crown."

A disoriented sort of horror fell on Miaka. Somehow, though she'd known people were generally trying to kill her, she had not expected them to rope Rokou into the affair. And if he was here, clearly they were trying to aim for Houki. A stab of worry ached through her chest. "I- oh, Rokou-san... I'm so sorry, I didn't-"

"Don't _bloody_ apologise," he snapped again. "It's not your fault obviously. I mean I do think you could have worked out a nicer way to leave my house but you know I'd stand with you lot no matter what happened. I wouldn't betray my brother's memory, for god's sake!"

Miaka finally understood what he was on about. She knelt up swiftly and edged to the bars of her cell. She could hardly see Rokou in the other cell across the corridor. He was only a silhouette, not terribly distinct from the shadows surrounding him. "Rokou-san," she said, biting her lip. "Of course not. I know you wouldn't do that."

"I don't think anyone else believes it. They wouldn't have brought me here, would they, if they believed I wouldn't cave?" he demanded, though not of her, his voice shaking with bitterness and sorrow. "I'm not important enough for that. They think I'm going to cave and let them take her. They think I'm going to betray her," his voice cracked a little now. "I wouldn't. Don't you see?"

"I do see," she said, hurriedly, wanting to somehow offer assurances. "Oh, Rokou, I-"

"I wasn't brave," he said, and now she knew he was speaking through tears. "I wasn't brave then, and I know that. But it was a different kind of bravery, you know? It takes a different kind of bravery to live through two siblings dying and not cave in. It's ordinary, but it's not ... I'm not a coward now, Miaka."

"I know," she said, helpless. Why was he saying all this to her? Why were they not making some sort of crazy plan to get out of this place? Yet, it seemed important now to listen.

"So they will fail. They won't get to her through me. And I know no one knows... Ryuuen never knew, Kourin- she couldn't have known. But I'm not a coward."

"Rokou-"

"I'm not. And there's something-"

"_Rokou_!" said Miaka, panicking now. "Okay, look, we've got to get out, okay? We need to find a way to get out of this prison and we're-"

A loud bang interrupted her. The light flooded in now; judging by its intensity, it was about midday. Miaka despaired, suddenly and swiftly. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a pure horror, an infinite helplessness and her mind, her soul, the being she had been, refused to accept what was happening. The soldiers came marching in, their shoes crunching heavily on the cold, cold floor.

"Rokou-" she turned to find him looking at her urgently.

"I am not a coward," he repeated, though he was shaking.

She nodded, not quite sure what else to do, but the soldiers were upon their cells.

"I-"

"Silence, Miko," snarled the commander. "We'll come back for you. You!" he barked at Rokou. "On your feet."

They shoved him out of the prison cell so viciously that Miaka yelled in protest.

"Quiet!" the commander barked at her.

"I will bow to her!" yelled Rokou, even louder. "I am owed the right to pay homage... to the cause I serve."

There was a round of bewildered silence and one small nervous snicker. The commander growled a little, but acceded. "Go on then, traitor. Kneel. It's good practice anyway." This time there was a round of laughter, and Miaka was utterly befuddled. But Rokou, heedless, knelt by her and beckoned to her.

"Please, Miko," he said, with a strange solemness. "Please, take my hand, and bless me."

"Wh-"

"Please," he said, now urgently.

Completely thrown, she did, not knowing where this absurd loyalty was coming from. She had in her time come across people who believed in her in the way you believe in a god. Chou Rokou knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, she was no god. She was the idiot who'd crash-landed in his living room and hit him on the head with a large amphora. And now here he was, marching to his trial for treason - mostly because of her - asking her to bless him!? She took his hands in his, and looked at him. And then she knew.

As he let her hands go, she felt her tears start to flow. With folded hands, she knelt and wept, as they yanked him away. Something was very wrong. Something was so beyond unbelievably wrong, and she had no idea how to stop it. In the moment that Rokou rose and walked, head held high, with the soldiers out of the dungeon, Miaka was the child she'd been when she'd first arrived in Kounan. It mattered little that she had grown and that life had taught her much. In this moment, she was helpless and humbled.

The doors closed and in the small slivers of light that remained, she unfolded her hands and looked at the large rusty key to her cell - Rokou's parting gift.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **So I'm back... that only took TWO years *ahem, looks innocuous*. So I have some stuff to say/some excuses to make, and I shall do it in points! :D

1. Obviously a lot of stuff has changed in the last two years, including my laptop (which died, poor bugger, a couple of times) and my clarity about the FY universe and what was going in my head. So... as a warning, in the next few chapters, there are likely to be inconsistencies. Reading this chapter itself - the beginning bit - seemed a little inconsistent with Taka, Tasuki and Subaru's conversation about the missing letters before. Also, I am not very sure if Soi did ask Hikari to keep her and Tomo's presence a secret, but I know I intended for her to... *hides* But these small blobs of forgetfulness aside, I'm pretty clear about what's going to happen next.

2. I intend to come back to the whole story and do something along the lines of a Grand Edit Of Doom, but I'm scared of getting sucked into the cycle of editing-over-writing, and not moving forward... and I don't trust myself to not lose interest. So... this may take a while.

3. I would like to acknowledge that it is a lot of this chapter is totally weird, and in most cases there is a reason for it. However, in some cases, like Hikari falling asleep in the middle of everyone else fighting, there is no reason for it. There may be other such weirdness, but to be fair, it's FY - weirdness is the M.O.

4. Just like this chapter, I was a bit lost also and am being sort of slowly found. The last two years have been crazy, and difficult, and awkward, and weird. There was about a year in there where I couldn't write at ALL, which was scary. BUT I'm getting back together. I have been writing poems and some other stuff (link in bio, in case you're intrigued) and now I finally seem to have found my voice again in terms of writing. Just want to say that I still completely intend to finish this story, and if you're still reading, thank you, thank you, thank you.

5. Thanks to Nile 1283, Ayumi Tsukunami and Flashyfirebird... and also a HUGE shoutout to MercuryMoon for keeping me connected. *beams and showers with love and cookies*

_Standard Disclaimer (see earlier chapters) applies._


	29. 27 The Last Thing You Lose

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**  
**The Last Thing You Lose**

* * *

_"We should meet in another life, we should meet in air, me and you."_  
~ Sylvia Plath ~

* * *

"Chou Rokou," announced the captain of the troop that had brought him to the courtyard from his cell. "You stand accused of treason against the Emperor and the Country of Kounan. You have conspired with other traitors across the city, enemies of the new regime, and planned to rope more in to serve in your plan to overthrow the Emperor. Here is a list of names of people you have contacted and intend to contact. Do you deny this is your hand?"

He stood in the middle of the courtyard, his hands bound behind his back and the sun boring into his skull in a way that helped neither his month-long migraine or the revolting nauseous fear. The air was dry and still, and there was the buzzing of complete silence around, though the courtyard was packed with soldiers and members of the court. Boushin sat at his throne, his face completely blank as he stared at some distant spot over Rokou's head. Houki was nowhere to be seen.

Good, thought Rokou, though it did nothing to make him any less alone in his crazy and yet completely clear choice. "No," he said, presently, and was aware of a rustling amongst the people.

"And these," said the captain, lifting his hand so everyone could see the rolls of parchment he was holding. "These are letters we have recovered - transactions between you and your co-conspirators in Sairou. Do you deny these?"

"No," said Rokou, who hadn't the faintest idea what the man was on about.

"Really?" said another voice, and everyone turned as one to look at the Prime Minister's somewhat unimpressive, short and rotund figure at the helm with the Emperor. He was smiling.

"...yes," said Rokou, trying to keep his face blank.

"Do look closely at these letters, Chou-sama, as I am certain you have never seen these letters before," he said, handing the letters to a soldier and indicating for him to take them to Rokou.

"No, I wrote them."

"Do you know why I know you are lying, Chou-Rokou?" he asked, coldly, slowly.

Rokou held his ground. "I am not lying."

"These letters are in the woman's script - it's a form lost to all but housewives. I can't imagine how a clothes merchant such as yourself would come to know of a script reserved for harems and woman's antechambers."

"Well, you do, obviously," said Rokou, though he was shaking now, his hands completely cold, "so I imagine you would know." Now there was a rustle of alarm in the crowd. Jiu had been part of the Emperor's retinue since before Hotohori had passed away. Yet, he was an unknown enbtity as far as the crowd was concerned. This was the first time they had seen him speak so openly, so unbidden and with absolutely no interference from the Emperor. And the crowd was chilled.

Presently, Jiu smiled even more widely, and somehow this was even more alarming. "I would advise you to choose your next words very careful, Chou Rokou. You are in a precarious position, a position even one so simple as you can understand. You are the brother of a dearly departed Suzaku Seishi. One of the last followers of a forgotten tradition. This is a misguided attempt to revive that which has been lost... the time of prophecy and priestesses who rescue the country is over. This is a new era - and you are standing in the way. You are a simple man... but I am sure you can appreciate that you are not even the last of your own kind. You are nothing - not a warrior or a priestess of an Empress or even a thief. You are merely a clothes merchant who has been roped in by people much wiser than you. You can denounce them now, here. You can name those who have seduced you into believing, falsely, that the country is in trouble. These... these are not your letters. So whose are they?"

It didn't help. Somehow Rokou knew that this was his test - his final test, the test he had almost hoped for all his life while wanting to prove his brother and sister that he was brave and wise. He knew what he needed to do, and the words fell from his mouth without him having to think so much about them. But it really didn't help that he had to get through his final test with a stupid slimy bastard reminding him of his most basic fears.

"These are my letters. My brother knew the script - he was fond of the ways of the women, as anyone will remember," the lie came easily to him. "He taught me the script. These are my letters, and it was my plan."

"This is sort of amusing," said Hong Jiu, speaking quite softly now, though somehow his voice cut through the distance, Rokou's mask of bravery, the gut-wrenching fear beneath and all the surety he had ever felt in all his life. The clothes merchant could now feel himself unfolding, being undone, as the Prime Minister's voice almost carressed his ear - though the man stood several feet away. There was something about how he spoke that cut through everything to whatever lay at the core of his being. And it didn't matter, his faith or his heritage or his brother or his determination. In those moments that he spoke, Rokou believed him.

"You are alarmingly mistaken if you believe somehow that your sacrifice will save her. Or maybe you want to reach back through the years and save someone else, which is also... sort of amusing, actually. The end is coming for everyone who believes in the old gods, Chou-sama. There is no avoiding it. Your life is quite meaningless. Your sacrifice is, while sort of noble I guess, also rather meaningless. So you think of that, when the blade slices through you several hundred times. You think of that while your life slips away. It was all for exactly nothing. For nothi-"

But he cut himself off, through Rokou could not see why he would stop. If you were the kind of man to take pleasure in another's pain, this was a great time to do it. He had never been in quite as much agony in his life, or quite so alone, and he was painfully aware of the ordeal before him. A hundred slices of the knife... the punishment reserved for the most hideous of traitors... that was what he had coming. Kounan had in fact not used this punishment since before Hotohori had come to the throne.

The Prime Minister now seemed struck, speechless. He stood very still, and the air around the congregation slowed down entirely. Rokou had an impression that he was the only one breathing, and his breath was very loud. Then, the Prime Minister raised a hand to his chest and allowed a small gasp of sharp air to enter his lungs. He sounded almost as though he was in pain, which made no sense at all and was also somehow creepy. There was no mistaking it. In the next moment, he turned white, the blood draining from his face.

For a brief, wild moment, Rokou wondered if he was saved. Then he wondered if he was not, and was there to be one more moment of him having to decide if he could take another way out. But that moment passed, and a haunting thought gripped him - he would never know what he would have done in this moment, when he was so scared and confronted by a logical truth. When he was somehow made to test himself and his faith against this logical truth. Would he have chosen differently.

"Death," said Hong Jiu, quietly, but the word reverberated. He turned his gaze, full of pain, to Rokou, who stared back, now truly, grotesquely scared. "By slow slicing. Death to this traitor." 1

And though his words were infinitely soft, the crowd seemed to reverberate with them. Death to the traitor, they mumbled, muttered. Death to the madman who believed in the old ways. Death to the man who plotted the demise of their king! Death, death, death! Death by the slow slicing, the hndred slashes!

And as the crowd grew to a sort of frenzy, the small murmurs giving way to shouts and yells and chants for the same, Rokou watched ashen faced as the Prime Minister turned and walked swiftly away. A moment later, Boushin rose and his face still blank, his gaze never touching Rokou's face, he left as well.

It was as though he was being pulled away from the execution, as though Rokou was meant to face this alone, without Ryuuen or Houki or Miaka or Li-Fen or Kourin. Without the executioner and the king he was supposed to be betraying. All that remained was horror, as he was yanked up roughly and brought to the platform where the throne sat. He was shoved down by a frame of wood, and made to kneel, as they tied him to it. The thoughts, the doubts swirled in his mind wildly, like the churning of the noise and the piercing ache in his head. And as the first knife descended, he closed his eyes and prayed.

* * *

Amefuri literally threw her to the center of the clearing, and she landed painfully on her injured arms. But in the face of the fact that they were being attacked (for the third time in two days, at that), Hikari let out a mild squeak and then forgot all about it.

Her friends closed in around her so that she was at the center of the very small circle they could make with their bodies. For a moment Hikari had the scary impression that, if it came down to it, they would protect her with their bodies, literally. She dismissed the idea in the next instant, of course, because how absurd did that sound!

"Give me a swor-"

"_**No**_!" Reishun almost roared, and it was rather alarming. Not in the way that Amefuri was sometimes alarming, where you genuinely feared for your life and existence, but in the way that mothers were alarming, or worse, aunts or sisters. Or Hanako. There was something formidably fierce about that too, quite comparable to the few hundred soldiers or the Byakko Seishi who made it rain simply by being irritated. "_You stay down!_"

If she hadn't been so alarmed, Hikari may have been offended - but she knew as well as any of them that she was pretty much useless in a battle involving anything more palpable than her wit.

Admittedly, the reason she had pretty much missed the last two battles was not so much her lack of ability to fight as much as it was the pink floating Nyan Nyan orb. And she had once saved Reishun, though that seemed almost a lifetime ago. Since then she had done very little fighting. Even then, in fact, she had done very little actual fighting. The power had sort of erupted from her, and Hikari had not been able to think of it since then.

Then, as a whole army of soldiers poured into their little clearing, Hikari lost her train of thought. Dimly, she noted her friends' bodies tense up. Eian had his sword drawn, of course, and Reishun weilded a sword she had picked up from their earlier battle, as did Donghai. Amefuri carried many weapons, a sword that dangled from her waist and a knife in her boots, Hikari knew, but for the moment she was holding an axe over her head, looking quite dangerous.

And drifting over Eian's head were Tomo and Soi. For the first time, Hikari was somewhat grateful for their existence. In the face of what looked like a few hundred soldiers facing this small group of four warriors, one Nyan Nyan and one evidently useless Shinzaho of Suzaku, the ghosts' presence seemed like a small edge that would help them. For the first time since their encounter in Shichang, Hikari had the true sense of being fearful for her life.

And this was wholly different. At that time, she had been somewhat preoccupied by the length of her skirt, and she had this distinctive sense that as long as the pretty and completely crazy Reishun was next to her, she would be okay. On the bridge where they had met Amefuri, though things had been much more dire, they had sped past so rapidly that Hikari had barely had the opportunity to blink - and then Amefuri had punched her and that was that. Now though, she saw numbers. She saw the terribly odds of their situation. And this overwhelming fear could still not mask the dull, decided horror of the person that Hikari had taken to calling the Evil Commander Dude.

A voice boomed through the forest, right on cue. "I am compelled," said the voice, echoing as though someone was speaking from behind every tree, from under every root, "by the old customs to offer you the opportunity to hand over the Shinzahos and maybe we'll spare your lives." Reishun and Eian exchanged a look, though Hikari barely noticed this. A moment later, sounding deeply amused, the voice added, "Well, no, we won't. But we might make it less painful... though that too seems unlikely. Actually, on second thoughts, forget it. Attack!"

A brief moment of general confusion passed as the soldiers caught up with the voice's somewhat contradictory instructions. Then, as though shaking themselves out of said confusion collectively, they charged.

Before anyone knew what had happened, a huge bolt of lightning struck the area in between the Seishi and the soldiers. Blinded, disoriented, the latter scattered as everyone in the group - other than Tomo, who looked bored, and Soi, who was busy conjuring another bolt of lightning, though neither were visible to anyone but Hikari of course - looked at Amefuri with something like awe.

"It wasn't me," she growled, characteristically furious, but also quite astonished.

"What i-" Eian began, but was cut off.

The next bolt of lightning struck, and everyone yelped a little, though it was nothing to the foremost soldiers, who were sort of scurrying around like befuddled bats.

"What's going on!?" demanded Reishun, looking about wildly for the source of this information.

A large shield rose around them, seemingly made of some steel like substance, some sort of metal. It rose like a barricade and then pushed outwards, so soldiers actually stepped back, falling over each other in utter chaos, until the wall pushed through them.

It was an illusion, Hikari realised, and then turned to look at Tomo, speechless. The painted face, despite its elaborate designs, looked almost bored, as though this was child's play and ever so tedious. "You might want to stop looking like a bunch of dimwitted owls and get a move on," he suggested, rolling his eyes. Hikari was frankly too impressed to be annoyed.

"Um," she said, a moment later, shaking her head. "Um, we should - let's, like, run?"

So they did, after another moment of collective bafflement. They ran, and were extremely aware of the bolts of lightning in their wake, horrible illusionns that seemed to emerge from nothing and chase back the soldiers. Even so, they had to battle their way through the throng, Reishun and Eian taking the lead - Reishun had reverted to her strategy of picking up heavy objects (which were sometimes soldiers) and throwing them at the retinue of men before them, while Eian took the slightly more elaborate and decidedly more elegant way out - Donghai running with Hikari and Nyan Nyan and Amefuri bringing up the rear.

What was rather amazing and impressive was the sheer numbers of soldiers they encountered. How had all these people managed to creep into the woods unseen and unheard? Their run, however, turned out to be short-lived.

Reishun suddenly stopped - Hikari ran solidly into her, though the woman, rock-like, did not budge. Hikari noted, with some resentment, that Eian, who had in fact been behind Reishun, had avoided this entirely. But she realised very quickly that they had significantly bigger problems.

Looming over their heads was a monstrous snake. It rose several feet over their heads, black and enormous, its amber eyes glowing maliciously. Its neck, or body, was about as thick as a trunk, and Hikari could not see how far into the darkness it extended. The woods fell silent; even the soldiers fell quiet, and Hikari had the distinct impression that this was the first demonstration of such power they were witnessing.

It was a mark of how far in her journey she had come, she realised dully, that she was not wildly surprised. She was deeply unsettled and completely unsure; and alarmingly aware of that they were now surrounded by soldiers as well as small black snakes that slithered along the forest floor to where they were. She was certainly very afraid, for her friends and for herself also, but she was not entirely surprised.

For a very brief moment, she had this wild notion that maybe, just maybe, she could do what she had done with Reishun before - so many nights ago. But before she had a chance to push herself forward to protect her friends without having the slightest clue how - which was stupid, but really the only instinct she was aware of; - she was enveloped in pink.

She yelled, but it didn't matter; the pink pressed in around her. Hikari knew what came next. She also knew she was fairly powerless to stop it from happening. Nyan Nyan was a very harsh mistress for a bobbly pink demi-goddess. But, damn it, she did not have to happy about it. "NYAN NYAN NO I DO NOT WANT YOU TO TAKE ME AWAY DO NOT DO THIS YOU MISERABLE PINK BOBBLEHEAD."

In the split second that they lingered by their friends, Hikari noted that none of them seemed too bothered by her yelling or her spontaneously turning into a pink ball (which was what she thought she looked like) and knew instinctively that her yelling was not heard. Of course, this made her scream all the more. This started in the general area of protests - "DON'T TAKE ME AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS!" - and moved to to general complaining - "YOU ALWAAYS DO THIS AND WHYYY WON'T YOU LISTEN!" - and there was admittedly some actual fear - "THEY NEED OUR HELP NYAN NYAN!" - but it all swiftly degraded to the realm of general, if elaborate rudeness - "YOU ARE A HORRIBLE %$^t#(u%* ( !" - that would, while certainly ot leading ot Tasuki actually blushing, have likely made him smirk.

However, all of this, and their hurtle through the space-time-continuum (or whatever the hell it was), came to a very abrupt halt as they ran into what felt like a tree, which was an unprecedented experience in the life of Sukunami Hikari. Perhaps it could have been compared with being hit by a bus or run over by a train, but as neither of these things had happened to her, she found herself completely bewildered and in a lot of pain. Her body and mind - her being, really, responded with utter confusion. She felt no pain though she knew she was in a crazy amount of pain and when her body's internal defenses ran out, it would not be fun. Also, for a couple of moments, as though her senses had lost it entirely, she saw stars. Not blinding spots of light that happen in the aftermath of a solid knock to the head, but actual stars - constellations glowing bright, red and somehow meaningful, except that she did not understand. She squinted, and pain exploded in the general area of her head.

Then, a dark shadow passed over her head and her senses seemingly started to realign. It took her what felt like many long minutes to register that she was looking at the shape of a man, looming over her head. And she knew, that Nyan Nyan had been sorely mistaken in trying to get them to safety.

_Nyan-Nyan..._

Blinking, she tried to sit up and look around, bending her elbows to try to prop herself up. A sudden sharp pain burst through her arms and she realised, without needing to look down to check what the wetness was, that she was bleeding again from the wounds that she had been so certain were healing from the shen-qu's medicines - they hadn't hurt too much in a while, after all. But she had deeper worries. Trying not to groan, she looked around. _Nyan-Nyan?..._

He was saying something, in his familiar cold voice, the man looming over her head, though she couldn't entirely make out the words. A cold panic was rising in her chest as she looked around for the demi-goddess. It didn't help that something was blurring her vision, something warm and slightly sticky that also seemed to be slithering down her forehead. Hikari didn't know - didn't care that she was bleeding or that she was about to be in a lot of pain very soon, if not actually dead. She cast about, increasingly frantic, for Nyan Nyan.

The commander was speaking about bravery and friendship and how it wasn't terribly brave of her to try to leave her friends behind. He was reminding her of her actions before, and that maybe she could have actually saved them if she'd tried. Or maybe he wasn't speaking at all, and her ears were ringing. She could feel something wet run down her cheeks now. She tried to sniff these away and be brave, but she scared and horrified that Nyan Nyan was dead or wounded or something awful and she didn't know what was going to happen to her friends, and maybe, just maybe, the voice in her head was right - she could have fixed this and she didn't even try...

"Nyan Nyan!" she burst out, her voice unrecognisable.

"Oh, she's alright," said the man in his cold voice. It took an effort to look up at him and follow his hand to what it was pointing at - the crumpled figure of what looked like a child at the base of a tree. "You both just made quite an impact and she bore the brunt of it."

Hikari tried to stand. She in fact attempted to leap forward to check on Nyan Nyan - she actually willed herself to do it but her body could not comply with her commands. What the hell was wrong with her body?! "Nyan Nyan," she said, a little stupidly, but that was really all that could come out. "I-"

She found herself grabbed by the arms and straightened up. "Save your strength," she heard Xiang - or this version of Xiang - say, as her head spun horribly. "You will need it when you meet the Black Dragon."

Then, blackness took over, and she knew no more.

* * *

A grim silence echoed through the woods, despite that it felt as though there were enough people in their to populate a small country.

Reishun could see, from their spot in the clearing where the giant serpent loomed over them, the man - who looked rather pasty faced and somehow serpentine with, with teeny nostrils and really looked nothing like Xiang, though it was clear to her that he was definitely one of his "forms" - towering over Hikari's prone figure, Nyan Nyan by the tree. For a brief, paralysingly scary moment, she thought Hikari was dead. But as the girl shuddered and struggled to get up, this fear was abated.

Two soldiers grabbed Hikari by her arms, which seemed to be soaked in blood. As she went limp, they carried her into the darkness of the woods, illiciting a yell of something like desperate rage from Reishun. She would never know what she had yelled - she wouldn't even know what she had intended to tell. Something deep inside her was raging - against her, against the commander and the army, against the possibility that Hikari could be lost. Where the hell were they taking her?! What did they intend to do?! She stood there, shaking, in between Amefuri and Donghai, and found herself, for the first time in her life, blindingly angry and with no idea what to do with it.

Later, she would imagine this was sort of what Amefuri felt like all the time.

The man turned and smiled, almost pleasantly. Next to her, Amefuri stiffened. Very reluctant to stop looking at the spot where Hikari had disappeared, Reishun turned slowly and found, to her deep and unpleasant horror, that the tiny black snakes all around them had raised their heads and were _looking_ at them.

"Well, that was easy," said the man, presently, and though he did not yell, they could hear him. His voice came from the darkness, from the small snakes snaked around them, the huge looming shadow over their heads... from their own bones, it seemed. Against her will, Reishun was reminded of the invasiveness of Commander Xiang's painful black magic, or whatever it was that he did, and despite her rage, she shuddered. Hikari... "And almost engaging. Well, I'm going to leave now - I would say it was pleasant to meet you, but you're all rather boring and predictable. Though, never mind," he added, placatingly, "you'll be dead soon. And I get to tell you that you die having failed - to protect the Shinzaho, the country - falling as we speak-"

He cut himself off as Eian took a step forward, but was forced to stop as he found a spear his throat. The man seemed amused and really quite self-assured. It was, Reishun reflected, quite annoying. "Yes, it's difficult," he said, as though speaking to a very small child. "But in about ten minutes it won't matter. Goodbye, warriors of the old gods; there really is no room for _you_ in this world any longer."

Then, he turned and walked into the darkness.

For a moment after he disappeared, there was silence. The warriors waited for the soldiers and serpentine creatures around them to attack, and the latter, it seemed, had been waiting for some sort of sign with such intent that they'd missed the wagon somewhat.

Then, the serpent reared, making an awful roaring sound - Reishun would later spend a significant amount of time wondering if all snakes made those noises, but humans just could not hear them - and descended. Someone grabbed her hand and yanked her roughly out of the way, and she crashed to the ground as the serpent crashed behind them where they had been standing. Reishun looked around to check on the person who had made sure she'd not been killed, but Amefuri was already on her feet and lashing out somewhat alarmingly with the axe.

Cringing just a little, though inordinately grateful for the woman's swift instincts, Reishun clambered for her fallen weapon, shoving a soldier who got in her way aside - he flew to the nearest tree and lay there, prone. There was a sudden alarming clarity in Reishun's mind: make sure Donghai (who she had got into this mess) was okay, get to Nyan Nyan, and then follow this particularly smarmy and irritating version of Commander Xiang to wherever the hell they'd taken Hikari. And again, later, she would imagine that this was how Amefuri thought pretty much all the time - with the kind of clarity that battlefields loaned to you. There was a good and a bad, a preferable and a non-preferable, and all shades of grey, doubts and worries, all thought, really, did took a backseat to this. Reaching her sword, she cast about.

The giant serpent was now engaged with Eian - who was somehow battling it off with bolts of lightning and other ephemeral dark shapes that flew at the creature to distract it long enough for him to get a stab or two in. There was something slightly odd about this, but Reishun did not have the time to try to work it out. It seemed that both Amefuri and Eian were okay where they were.

Looking around, she found Donghai quickly enough. He had adopted to swing his sword around like a whirlwind while yelling as though the end of the world was upon him (for good reason). He had created a sort of circular space around him - he was the eye of his own storm, in a sense, as he kept turning as though not sure of how to stop. Indeed, if he had stopped, the soldiers surrounding him would have closed in and he would have been unable to fight back.

Pushing another man out of the way, Reishun went to assist. She wound up stomping on something squelchy and knew without looking down to check that this was one of those tiny black snakes. She smirked, somewhat grimly. Not good for much other than squelching, apparently. Fueled, she acquired a shield from one of her attackers (when she was clear about what she was doing, this kind of stuff came to her very instinctively) and shoved her way through the throng of soldiers, stopping just short of where Donghai was pretending to be a whirlwind. A particularly brave soldier tried to lunge at her, and really this was sort of fortunate, because Reishun had had no plan as to what to do after this point - or how to get Donghai to stop being a whirlwind, which was pretty crucial. The soldier found himself lifted over her head, his yells adding to the din that Donghai's were already creating. Then, she threw him, rather unceremoniously at the troops around them, causing general alarm and disorganisation.

"DONGHAI!" she bellowed, because she didn't know what else to do and also because it really seemed like he wasn't sure how to stop.

And she sounded so very much like an angry shepherd (and she did, in fact, belong to a family of angry shepherds-turned-merchants) that he stopped short, looking stunned and guilty and extremely scared all at the same time. "What?" he squeaked, but as Reishun gave him a look that was simultaneously incredulous and furious, he registered what was happening. "Oh," he said, a little stupidly, and then they both charged at the soldiers, Donghai significantly encouraged by her presence.

They both had similar strategies and strengths, it seemed. Donghai was an unnervingly large man and he had been a bandit for a while now, and Reishun had really spent a long time sticking with the "pick up heavy object and throw it at threatening things" philosophy, no matter what Amefuri said about finesse and strategies. It worked just fine with a small battalion of soldiers. What was quite disarming was how many small battalions of soldiers there seemed to be.

Around them, the noise was growing inordinately overwhelming. Lightning crashes and monstrous roaring filled the woods, but also, more and more soldiers seemed to be pouring into the clearing. It was almost unreal - and had it not been for the very real battle they were in, Reishun would have been baffled. They seemed to emerge from the darkness itself, an unending train of soldiers.

Not to far away from her, Eiann let out a most un-Eian-like battle-cry. Reishun turned - a crucial moment passed in which she saw Eian run through the monster's neck with his sword - and then let out a yell of her own as a soldier caught her hard on her shoulder with his sword. The pain flashed like blinding white light for a split second, but her rage - the battle rage she had never, in this life time, felt - took over in the next instant. She raised her sword, and, furious, pushed back at the the troops with her shield, blood gushing from her shoulder. But about halfway through this, all the soldiers vanished entirely, and she felt face first to the ground.

Stunned, and groaning, she pushed herself up to find a tiny black snake looking at her intently. For a moment, she thought it would bite her and that would be that - but it turned and slithered away, joining the many other snakes that were slithering away. Blinking in confusion, Reishun looked around. The soldiers and the monstrous snake had vanished; Eian stood there, his sword planted in the ground where it had struck after the snake had vanished, a dark mist swirling around him like dust that had yet to settle.

* * *

"Yuuki-sensei."

Keisuke, who was now compulsively drinking tea at the dining table, turned and looked somewhat guiltily, but also with budding apprehension, at Hanako. The fact was that the last few times the girl had popped up, it had been with really bad news or an immediate disaster following her in. She seemed innocuous, but he knew these things. He had a sister much like that. Disaster pretty much followed Miaka wherever she went, especially when she went where she was going looking particularly innocuous. Much like Hanako did now.

Therefore, Keisuke regarded the thirteen-year-old with a certain healthy fear. He also regarded her with some shaky disorientation because he had now had around twenty cups of tea while sitting across from a very calm and smug looking Nakago, and he was really wired. It may have made more sense to toss something along the lines of very strong alcohol in the tea at some point, but that moment was long gone, and now he felt, and probably looked, like a particularly hyperactive old lady.

"What now? Is the book black again? Did Li-Fen break something expensive? Is Yui losing it? What is it?"

Hanako raised an eyebrow and her gaze drifted to the kettle and Keisuke's tea cup, and then back to him. "I thought I'd let you know I phoned my parents and told them I'm staying with Hikari and her uncle. They may call."

"Oh," he said, as this information settled in. Then, he looked almost abashed. "Well. That's not scary."

"No, it's really not," Hanako agreed.

Keisuke cleared his throat. "Everything's a bit bats."

"This is true," nodded Hanako, her tone determinedly neutral. "Also Li-Fen thought she'd cook."

"Oh," said Keisuke, now positively stuned.

"Yes," said Hanako. "Maybe I'll take the tea from you?"

"Ah," said Keisuke, holding the teacup with some determination of his own. The teacup was all he had, he thought, a little wildly. The teacup was pretty much the only thing that made sense. Hanako reached. He shirked, and then found himself clutching the teacup all the more in the face of the frustrated, despairing sort of look she cast towards him.

"Well, now that Jun-chan is safely in bed," said Tetsuya, walking in with the somewhat relaxed air of the ignorant parent who didn't know what his child was up to, "what shall we do?"

"Ah, Tetsuya!" Keisuke announced, getting up and moving, with teacup, aware from Hanako. "Li-Fen's making some food," he informed his friend, almost a little desperately, as though in need of some sort of explanation as to how a person could travel through the universes, arrive in a virtual battle zone, be confronted by Nakago and Yui (not in that order) and somehow arrive at the point where she thought she would make food for everyone.

"Wow," said Tetsuya, with feeling, and sat down. "Yui's ordering pizza."

"Wow," said Keisuke, sitting down beside him. "Women."

Nakago looked very much as though he was going to nod and look impressed but had decided not to do so at the last moment.

"Right, this is weird," announced Hanako, wrinkling her nose. "You guys do... er, this, and I'm going to... be elsewhere for a bit. Right-o. Off I go."

She departed, muttering something about weird non-romantic non-superhero men, as, in vain, the Book tried. Its life flickered a bit, and impending doom (in the scary, non-amusing, non-literary-device kind of way) drew closer around it, it made one last valiant attempt. The inky blackness shifted and swirled...

* * *

"What happened?" Reishun demanded, agitated.

"An illusion," said Amefuri, from behind her. She walked up, looking sigificantly battered but also a little alarmingly centered. "It was an illusion."

"All of it?!"

"It would seem so," said Eian, pulling his sword out. He was looking, with an odd expression, at Amefuri. "How did you do that?"

"How did I do what?"

"The lightning, the ... other things?"

"I told you, that wasn't me," said Amefuri, shortly, turning away from him to look critically at Reishun. "You're bleeding," she said, and sounded very much as though this was annoying.

Reishun however had other things on her mind. Suppressing a rush of annoyance with Eian, who seemed more interested in strategy, and Amefuri, who was just being rude as always, she moved swiftly across the clearing to where Nyan Nyan had fallen. But she knew, even before she got there, with a tremendous sinking feeling, that Nyan Nyan was no longer there. The grass by the tree where she had fallen was ruffled up, but that was all that was left of the demi-goddess, whose body had seemingly vanished entirely. Reishun did not know what this meant or how demi-goddesses worked. She was sure, though, so sure that Nyan Nyan was okay and couldn't be permanently hurt or worse, that it took her entirely by surprise that tears sprang to her eyes.

_Exhaustion,_ she thought, brushing them away roughly and trying to breathe evenly and deny the sinking sensation that even a person as indomitably optimistic as her had to identify as defeat and fear. Exhaustion was all it was.

She turned, clearing her throat and looking at her comrades. "Okay, what now?" she demanded, determinedly brisk. "What's the plan, how do we get them back? Can you track them?" she demanded of Amefuri, who did not seem remotely bothered by the briskness and moved past her to check.

A tense silence descended on the woods for the two minutes it took Amefuri to return. It was an odd silence, laced with a feeling that was almost out of place at a time like this. Reishun wasn't sure where it came from - or she tried very hard not to be sure of where it was coming from. But she could not look at Eian despite herself. Donghai came over and offered her a scrap of cloth from his gargantuan shirt, which she accepted and attempted to pat onto her wound.

"I need to go back to Eiyou," said Eian, presently, so softly that he was almost speaking to himself. "If Kounan is falling... If he was right... I need to get back."

Then, he fell silent, leaving Reishun to struggle with that displaced sort of feeling of disappointment that underscored everything else she was feeling at the time. The sense of clarity that the battle had loaned her had fled in the face of everything that was happening. She was terrified to the point of weeping for Hikari and Nyan Nyan; it took her completely aback, the fear, because she had been reared in an environment where fearing for the life of one's friends was not within her context. It had never seemed possible to her that she could lose a friend, and yet that notion of loss was familiar, elemental, primal. Something deep within her - that had nothing to do with her, for Suzaku's sake - was stirring phenomenally at this, and it scared her - for these stirrings brought other fears, of wolves and of cold, lonely deaths. Then there was Nyan Nyan's abilities, which had been a solid way of getting to Hikari, but were now missing along with the demi-goddess. And because none of this was comprehensible, she seized upon the disappointment that gripped her by the throat at Eian's words.

"Eiyou?" she asked, staring at him. "What about Hikari?" _And me? What about me?_ But she didn't say this; just stood there, looking at him. It helped her stay just a little calmer than she felt, focusing on Eian and her collossal personal disappointment in this second. When he looked even more dismal at this, she raised both eyebrows. "Hikari is the Shinzaho of Suzaku."

Eian took a deep breath. "You don't understand, Reishun-chan," he said, almost as though he was speaking to a younger sibling who had failed at their lessons.

Reishun was sure she did understand. She did understand because she knew what it was to feel the tug of past loyalties. She wouldn't have been _here_, in the woods where _he_ was, if it hadn't been for those past loyalties, which of course he did not understand or see. She was saved from having to respond to this, as Amefuri returned, looking grim.

"I can't track them - it's like before," she said to Reishun. Her eyes drifted to the Suzaku Seishi's wound, Donghai's apprehensive face, and then back again, and she looked distinctly disapproving. Reishun narrowed her eyes, and, without realising it, stuck her lower lip out in defiance. "They've completely vanished. All of it," she added, with frustration. "The soldiers, the snake - everything, it just upped and left."

Reishun, pulling her lower lip back in, looked at her aghast for a few seconds. "So what now?" she demanded, back to the brisk planning mode. "What the hell do we do now?"

"We should go to Eiyou-"

"And _abandon Hikari_?!" she snapped, finally, turning on Eian furiously enough to make him look a tad wary.

"We don't know where she is, Reishun, and our duty is to the country also-"

_**Your** duty!_ she nearly screamed in a fit of jealousy. But instead, she said, "We need to track Hikari - that was our responsibility. That's why we're here, isn't it?!"

"But we-"

"Eiyou is the only way for us to go," said Amefuri, just loudly enough to cut them both off. Ignoring Reishun's openly betrayed expression, she pressed on, in her terse manner. "If Kounan is falling, as he says, it means they've found a way to bring down the center. Mt. Taikyoku," she explained, as they looked at her blankly. "For no other reason would the Nine-Headed Beast take over Kounan. He has been waiting to do just this for many years - centuries. We need to get to Mt. Taikyoku before it's too late, and for that we do need to go back through Eiyou. It is," she added, "the fastest route. Though we're closer to Taikyoku-zan, as the crow flies." 2

Reishun stared at her, trying not to feel enormously betrayed by the geography of her country, though it really felt like it had abandoned her in her hour of need. But Amefuri had laid it out for her in that particularly brutal, straightforward way of hers. Oddly, this dulled the pain in the center of her chest more than Eian's gentleness and subtlety that left her confused and resentful and so, so hurt. Nothing, though, could dull her fear. "And Hikari...?"

"I think," said Amefuri, and even she sounded a little less terse - by her standards, this was almost gentle - as she said this, "he plans to sacrifice her to summon the Black Dragon."

Cold silence followed this, as everyone digested this. It wasn't as though it was unimaginable, or even as though it was unlikely. Really, it shouldn't have surprised her at all - and yet, Reishun found herself overwhelmed and bewildered, and really, really terrified. Something niggled gently at the back of her mind, but her fears overwhelmed her and all she felt was hollow. "So we failed," said Reishun, bitterly. She looked away from Amefuri at her fellow Suzaku Seishi, but he had bowed his head. She wasn't sure why this disheartened her all the more, but it did, and she had to look away. "We failed..."

"Not yet," said Amefuri, calmly and very softly, so only Reishun could hear her. It took a significant effort on Reishun's part to turn around and look at the solemn grey eyes, studying her with something that was just a little more malleable than the perpetual frigidness of her more common expressions. It was vulnerability, Reishun realised, with a sudden jolt, in the way that hope was vulnerable - which was probably why it was so difficult for Amefuri to admit to any. And even in this moment, where her world really felt as though it was crashing down around her, she could appreciate this. "Not yet," repeated the Byakko Seishi, and Reishun, though she could not imagine what to do next, nodded.

* * *

Faith took effort. Not grand effort of the kind that the warriors of the old gods were making at the moment, though grandiose gestures merited acknowledgement, if nothing else. But faith, real faith, took effort of the everyday variety. Hong Jiu knew this better than anyone, really, or so he believed, for he had lived with his secret all of his extremely long life.

His had been a painful and fragmented existence; he was certainly more than a man, but also less than a ninth of an almost god, and he had been this way for many hundreds of years. In this time he had grown to value people and the human existence, in a way that most did not... could not even begin to appreciate. Like that fool of a man sacrificing himself for his version of the greater good, in the courtyard of the Palace. Like the Empress he had imprisoned in her own room. They had no idea what a pure, magical gift they was in possession of. The beauty and power of an unfragmented soul... Jiu knew now that there was something formidable therein, something beautiful and purely powerful. And to him, who had wandered the earth for so long so fragmented, it was also quite unknown.

There was an admitted fragility about souls; it was why he had made this journey to begin with, to escape the fragile cycles of birth and rebirth. But he was now but a piece of the puzzle - a puzzle to which he hardly knew the answer himself. He had never loved, never hated, never wept from bitter resentment or laughed out of pure joy.

In many ways, he was just functional - it was why he had so often taken on roles like this one - that required an everyday structured approach, that required care and planning. He was good at that. He was good at keeping the end in mind, even when he did not know what the end was. In these last few years, particularly in the last few days, he had waited patiently for the fruition of a plan that he did not know the entirety of. He knew of only a fraction, some of the instruments, some of the principals. But that was about it. The rest was unknown.

The rest was faith.

And faith sometimes required ordinary effort. Like the kind of effort it took him to walk in calm, even, unfaltering steps from the courtyard to the palace, through the corridors to his room. The kind of effort it took to close his door calmly and stand before the mirror to unfasten his clothing, and read the characters forming with excruciating slowness across his chest, slicing through his flesh as somewhere, one of his own, carved into his own chest.

It took minutes - though it may as well have been hours - and by the time it was done, the Prime Minister's face was soaked with tears - of pain, bitterness and sudden agonising hope.

This was no grand gesture, and he knew it. But he knew, and he alone would know, what it took for him to pull his clothes back over the characters now emblazened upon his chest, to fasten them with shaking hands. To then wash his face and hands in the bowl in his room, and set out calmly, as though nothing had happened.

He made for the stables, where his wagon was ready and waiting - for just this contingency. He had made arrangements, of course - he was a careful planner, a cautious more-than-man-less-than-god-creature. As he took his seat in the carriage, he let out a shaky breath, and bade his horseman to ride. He had heard that it took a day of continuous riding from Eiyou to Mt. Taikyoku if you knew the way... and the way was now revealed to him.

Just as some other things were _not_ revealed to him...

* * *

As Li-Fen set down the large bowl of stew, to Keisuke and Tetsuya's great awe, the book had a breakthrough.

The ink swirled and the dark mass rose off the page. Hanako noticed this first and dropped a plate on the floor, alerting everyone to what was going on. The dark mass of ink took on many different shapes, one after another.

First, it acquired the shape of a great snake, and a man who sliced through its head - the head fell and the image exploded into a dark mist. They then saw the snake reform into a coiled mass, carrying the shape of a young girl seemingly limp. This procession carried on for a minute - ending at a large mountain.

"Taikyoku..." whispered Yui.

But then the mist swirled again, and formed the image of a snake running to a carriage. As the snake disappeared into the carriage, another figure, of a woman with a bun on either side of her head, ran up and leapt onto the carriage as well. The carriage moved forward at the earlier image had, reaching the large mountain.

Then, the dark mist fell back into the book and lay there, nothing but a large inkblot, uncommunicative and silent.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Phew. This was the first of about four central chapters that I anticipate will be difficult to write. Thanks for sticking around... and yes, it's going to get a little more grim for a bit now. And, yes, I snuck something into the last four lines, and yes, it is likely to be what you think. Enjoy!

1. **About _Slow Slicing_:** Wikipedia says: "Slow slicing (Lingchi) (simplified Chinese: 凌迟; traditional Chinese: 凌遲; pinyin: língchí, alternately transliterated Ling Chi or Leng T'che), also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts (simplified Chinese: 杀千刀; traditional Chinese: 殺千刀) or "千刀万剐", was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one's parents. The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place."

2. **Geography:** So, basically, the Shoryuu river lies to east-northeast of Eiyou (meaning more east than northeast, but more north than just east *helpful look*). Hikari and co have been travelling a while, and you have to remember that Nyan Nyan teleported them into a pigpen near the Shoryuu river from Eiyou, so they covered about a day's journey in a very short time. From that point, they've basically travelled the distance that fast-riding warriors could probably make (with minimal rest) in about four days. They have however taken significantly longer, what with all their adventures in between and various kidnappings.

There is a SHORTER route to the mountain from where they are, but since they are in the mountainous reaches of Kutou, Amefuri is right about route through Eiyou being FASTER. **THAT said, there are things that Amefuri doesn't know. *solemn, mysterious nod* **

(Additional information that you probably didn't ask for: I did a lot of digging for maps at this point. There are many maps of the Universe of the Four Gods, but I have to say, from the poin of view of constructing a actual geography of "ancient China", as this world is supposed to be, these are kind of useless. However, there is ONE map, created by the absolutely amazing owner of the etherella (and there's a dot here) com (and a slash here) fushigi yuugi website. (I have not read her fanfiction which can be found here on as VraieEspirit, particularly because she has written about Hikari and I am scared to find parallels and whatnot between her Hikari and mine - but I intend to reach it after I'm done, in like twenty years) and her character biographies are absolutely fabulous. But more to the point, she has a map, which places the Shoryuu river significantly more to the north than I imagined it here.)

Thanks so much to Tsukunami Ayumi for reviewing and FlashyFireBird for the nod and to MercuryMoon for the messages!

_Standard disclaimer (from previous chapters) applies._


	30. 28 Cunning Plans

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**  
**Cunning Plans**

* * *

_"I've got a plan so cunning, you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel!"_  
~ Blackadder ~

* * *

_He sat there for a long time, the waters of the lake splashing gently against its banks. Non-dream or not non-dream - he was unable, despite his vast reservoir of knowledge of different states of Being and so on, to diagnose precisely what was happening to him and Miaka - he was equipped with his fishing pole and a sudden but definitive sense of peace. It was a bit absurd to feel peaceful at a time like this, when he was trapped and clearly someone was trying to hurt his Miko, not to mention the whole Taikyoku-Shinzaho-debacle - but there it was nonetheless. He had not been sure if he meant it, when he told Miaka that he would break out of prison, but somehow that seemed like the reasonable and rational plan._

_He had not been able to access his abilities in a long, long while, and he now thought he knew why. His neighbour in the dungeons had been telling him, after all, that they came often and dragged him away, presumably to torture him. In his few and brief hours of semi-wakefulness in which he had conversed with Jungney, he had felt incomplete... fragmented._

_And that, he thought, was what he had become: fragmented, torn apart into pieces._

_Yet, through this tearing apart of himself, he had preserved, he had survived. Sitting here he knew - in a way that he had not known in a long while - perhaps because of his Miko or perhaps because he himself was healing. He knew where he was; he knew, more importantly, who he was. He knew there were paths he had forgotten - paths he had obscured because they led back to himself. And it was as though something within him was shifting... it was transforming in a manner that was both a gentle uncovering and a violent peeling of a bandage. And as this happened, as he sat there in his own memory, toying with his sense of peace, he found that his gentle suggestion was now a defintive course of action. It was an intention: to break out of prison and find his friends._

_Chichiri took a deep, long breath, and found his center._

Then, deliberately and with a measure of care, he woke up.

* * *

Crazy plans only worked, Taka knew, if you threw yourself into them headlong and forgot to ask why. So he braved the costume - the merchant's bright blue and red silky flaring piece of work - and he braved the slight face paint that Subaru insisted was the norm for merchants in the city, but when Tasuki thoughtfully suggested they cover themselves with cowdung to make themselves less appealing to the guards, he put his foot down.

As a result they smelled rather pleasant as they waltzed up to the royal fortress of Arudo. Tasuki donned a particularly fetching black, with a grey sash, and Taka was compelled to point out how tragic it was that Anzu wasn't here to see him. At this conjuncture, Tasuki brought his tessen down on Taka's head.

They reached the gate with no incident, carrying a cart of fine silk from the eastern lands (which they had procured at an alarming rate from a fine cotton merchant from said lands), and looking quite suave. Perhaps a little too suave, Taka thought, a trickling of doubt making its way down his spine. But the guards said nothing, and let them through.

The autumn full moon at Arudo was the mark of the close of the trading season. Winter would set in after this, and the nights would get immensely cold, and few would be able to make the journey across the lands - from the north in Hokkan and from beyond the western frontiers of Sairou itself. (Kounan and Kutou rarely experienced such extreme weather, and most in Sairou depended on these countries for food in the harsh winter months.) Nonetheless, the tribes and guilds gathered at the close of the season to celebrate, make their last big sales and exchanges, and, of course, pay homage to the Empress so she granted them safe passage back to their homes.

The inside of the fortress was about as friendly as the outside, though the lighting from the lamps and shops did lend a certain vibrancy to the place. The walls, made of grey stone, towered over them all, unfriendly and forbidding. The castle itself loomed, its high towers really sort of marking how unreachable the royal family was. Admittedly, the Empress was to descend and make a round of the shops on display for the festival, but that, Subaru had told them, was really just ceremonial and pompous. Which was great, because ceremonial and pompous also meant a momentary distraction.

They waited, Taka spending his time preventing Tasuki from making ridiculous sales at tremendous losses. "Do you know how much we paid for this?!" he demanded of his fiscally ignorant friend, before taking over the sales. Tasuki thereafter spent his time goading people into buying their stuff (or scaring them far away from their shop).

It was a few hours before the celebrations began, and by this time, they had sold most of what they'd come with - which wasn't the point at all, as Tasuki reminded Taka many times, half-amused and half-exasperated. But, as Taka pointed out, it did not hurt at all, and Tasuki, bandit at heart, could not disagree. Thus, when the first display of fireworks went up and it was time, they had a reasonable amount of money clinking in their pockets.

"Ready?" said Taka, jingling the change with wistful acknowlegdement that they would have to leave this behind soon.

"&*#& yes," said Tasuki, and grinned.

There was no reason this plan would work, Taka was aware, and that was probably its strongest point. Miaka had, after all, a long time ago managed to breach the defences of Kutou's then formidable army by turning up at the gate1. This thought was uplifting, for though the results of Miaka's actions had been disastrous, it was uplifting to think of his wife, who was infectiously joyful and who he missed very much.

Taka wondered how she was doing and if she was reading about him as they shoved and pushed, quite rudely, through the throng to get to a more noticeable spot in the extensive courtyard. There was a certain relief in punching each other even when no one was watching, but at this conjuncture, it would be really unproductive. Taka calculated his position before they got to the clearing, and thus, with a very small measure of smug satisfaction at having bested his friend, he got the first blow in.

"Ara, you %$&%& ( U&!)!" yelled Tasuki, almost cheerful, and lunged at him also.

They kept it almost civil by their standards, knowing they needed to look like a couple of idiot merchants squabbling over their money more than two Seishi with reasonable well-honed martial skills. But this didn't really stop them from trying to inflict damage on one another. Perhaps it was the sheer frustration of being in the middle of an adventure and very close to the evil villain they needed to demolish and being totally unable to do anything about it.

As a result, Taka was bleeding by the mouth and Tasuki was sporting a black eye as they were hauled up by the bulky soldiers of Sairou and dragged to the center of the parade, where an extremely pristine Empress waited for them. The Commander stood beside her, Taka noted, beckoning to the soldiers to bring them closer. It was an awkward moment in which he looked at them, examining them closely. Taka had a sensation in his tummy that could only really be described as squirmy. This was stupid, his mind informed him. They were being absolutely moronic and there was totally no way this would work. But then, the Commander turned to his Empress as she spoke.

"Who are these?" she asked, coldly.

"Just a couple of idiots, Empress Shuchun," said the bulkiest of these soldiers, shoving Taka to his knees. Seishi or not, Taka felt his knees crack just a little at this. As Tasuki joined him with a similar crack and many more expletives, he looked at Empress Shuchun, and for a moment, forgot how stupid this was and that his tummy was squirming.

The rugged terrain of Sairou tended to loan to all its occupants a certain ruggedness of their own. Taka and Tasuki were themselves tanned and quite brown now, and most men and women they came across had skin that seemed just a tad thick for having borne the ravages of their land. Empress Shuchun seemed utterly untouched by all of this. The woman standing before him was certainly not young, but very well preserved. Her skin was pristine, almost porcelain and certainly she looked about as delicate as a small china doll. She was indeed small woman, clearly beautiful, her dark hair a stark contrast to her white face, her lips blood red. She looked at them with gleaming dark eyes and seemed haughtily unimpressed by what she saw.

And Taka, who was very level-headed about beauty in women other than his wife, who he believed for very good reason was the most beautiful woman on the planet, found his gut turning. It took a moment for him to realise he was grinning like a bit of a fool, and he cleared his throat, feeling vaguely embarrassed and bemused. One look at Tasuki informed him that he was neither alone nor the most foolish-looking. Subtly, he kicked Tasuki in the shin, illiciting an aggravated expletive from the bandit.

Empress Shuchun turned up her nose. "Throw them in prison," she said, sounding bored. "Why do we have to deal with these fools, Xiang?" she added, placing her hand on the Commander's outstretched arm as she turned away, moving with a somewhat unreal grace. "It's so tedious."

"Don't let them bother you, Your Emininence," said the Commander, and led her away to watch the festivities.

Fireworks peppered the sky as they were hauled to their feet and shoved along towards the fortress. "$%& *$( great," said Tasuki, and took the opportunity to trip Taka up as they walked along.

* * *

"Well," said Taka, sounding very much as though he wanted to use as few words as was possible to communicate because he was terrified of jinxing their plan, "that part went swimmingly well."

"% &!&$( awful digs," Tasuki commented, determined to not focus on the very real possibility that the Commander would swoop down on them and that would be that. Really, stupid plan or not, you didn't focus on the worst possible outcome.

Instead, he took a moment to look around at the straw-infested prison cell which smelled both very musty and also a urinal. It was clear not a very top class cell, reserved for drunkards, ruffians and common thieves. You could sort of smell these kinds of things in prisons, or so Tasuki knew, mostly from experience from a long time ago. Ever since the summoning of Suzaku, he had been able to get away with a lot more. There were indeed times when being in prison was not the worst thing that could happen to you - especially if you happened to have been caught with a mercurial, passionate sort of bandit, of the, well, female persuasion. That kind of thing was not terrible at all. However, a Suzaku Seishi had to have some standards, and thus, when Tasuki found himself caught in a spot that smelled as bad as this, he usually flashed his Seishi sign, accepted great honours and was on his merry bandit-y way.

"Poor Chichiri," added Taka, as Tasuki brought out the extremely particular tools he'd brought along. Then, being a man confronted with odd-shaped tools, he abandoned all empathy and crouched down beside Tasuki to watch him work. "Will these work?

Tasuki rolled his eyes and responded with an eloquent snort, and then proceeded to ignore him. These were some of his oldest possessions and he rarely left his caves without them. You did not become a formidable bandit without some very specific sorts of tools. You could spin the finest yarn about how you walked through doors and escaped impossible situations with pure luck and magic, but you would be creating a blanket of tter bollocks, which admittedly a lot of people prefered to the plain old truth that he, like few others of his class, knew a brilliant locksmith and he happened to know that most frequently, the best way to get out of a cage was to dismantle the door by the hinge. People never thought about this stuff, really.

Among those things he had not brought along was his tessen and despite his now considerably ruffled finery, he felt quite naked without it. But he did have his phantom cards, which he'd stuffed into his pocket at the last minute. They had been instructured very strictly by Subaru not to use magic or their powers. If you were tuned into the realm of physical energies, she had explained - and she lost Tasuki at this point, though Taka seemed to follow a little - then the Seishis and their chis would seem particularly disturbing. Like a disturbance in the force, Taka had said, grinning to everyone else's utter lack of understanding. Tasuki gathered, with some argument, that this basically meant not carrying his tessen. But he'd snuck the phantom cards out when no one had been looking. Oh, he wouldn't use them unless it was dire, damn it, he wasn't a idiot, but you didn't waltz into a fortress where people wanted you dead armed with little more than a set of what looked like - and what in a battle would effectively be - a set of squiggly, metallic toothpicks.

The hinge clinked and Tasuki smirked as Taka leaned in further to examine the intricacies of what had happened. "Yes," he said, cheerfully, whisking away his tools. "It's pretty awesome." He then gently pushed the cage and watched as it shifted open with a soft creak.

Taka clapped him on the back and they spent an appropriate moment grinning at one another with great satisfaction. Yes, they were probably going to die here, but it was a job pretty well done.

Then, they moved onto the modest task of locating a Seishi in the prison cells.

* * *

As it turned out, there were seventeen levels of dungeons in the fortress of Arudo. Seemingly the ruling dynasty's paranoia had resulted in an extensive cleansing of the lands of all kinds of questionable characters. They were also apparently quite confident that their dungeons would hold, because every level housed only two guards for all the prisoners. It was not particularly difficult to take the guards out - Taka and Tasuki being particulatly adept at this. And, Taka noted with great relief, it helped that once they were knocked out, they stayed knocked out - unlike the last time.

What was however difficult was to keep Tasuki from grumbling very vocally about the absurdity of seventeen levels of dungeons.

"Seventeen?!" he demanded, as they reached the fourth level, but to his credit he kept his voice down.

"Well, no one said it was going to be easy," Taka responded, in a muted and reasonable sort of tone that did absolutely nothing to assuage Tasuki's utter fury.

Around the tenth level, Tasuki presented the same question: "%*^#%& *# seventeen?!"

"That we've know of," said Taka, who was by now also pretty annoyed. At the same time, it was very hard not to be amused, as Tasuki attempted to vent his frustration by punching a wall. Taka himself was not feeling very friendly towards the walls, but he knew from bitter experience that when you punched a damn wall, the damn wall punched back. Tasuki spent the next minute clutching at his hand and hopping around, trying not to yell in pain. Well, that's what you get for punching a wall, thought Taka, not without affection. Idiot.

Another five levels down, Taka found himself beginning to get a little anxious about the time. Surely this had taken a fair amount of time - what if the festival was over? He had to drag himself back to the task at hand - that was the whole point, right? To have no plan and take it as it came. Nonetheless, he had to struggle a little with his discomfort, while Tasuki grumbled curses under his breath, something about "paranoid %&%^ ( & Sairou".

"Maybe we should just skip to the seventeenth floor," said Taka, snapping them both out of the inertia of their thoughts. "Clearly that's the most important."

"^Y$& *," said Tasuki, but it sounded like an agreement.

"Unless they've got secret levels," added Taka, as they climbed down past level sixteen, illiciting a sound from Tasuki that sounded like it was caught between a groan and a sob. To be fair, it was a very stressful situation. Tasuki's evident boredom, in this case, was probably only a defense mechanism against the fear of what would happen if they didn't find Chichiri - or what would happen if they did, at that. They knew he was alive, in the way Amefuri had known Tokaki had died... but they didn't know what condition he would be in. For the hundredth time, Taka had to fight down the fear that they had come too late, waited too long... played it too safe in order to wait for the stupid festival.

They peered down the dimly lit corridor of level seventeen. The prison cells they walked in were notably different from the cells they had visited before, with Tokaki. There was a tangibility about these cells that was both relieving and a bit distressing; how had they not realised they were walking into a trap before? Yet, there was slightly odd about this level of dungeon. Certainly, it wasn't the lighting - all dungeons were creepily lit, including the dungeons at Kounan. But those dungeons were friendly compared to the cold, silent walls of these prison cells. They had walked past a number of cells before Taka had realised that that was what it was. No one snored, no one squeaked. No one even screamed, which would have been quite creepy but significantly better than this. They couldn't even hear the crunching of the guards' boots.

Taka suddenly did not want to find Chichiri, if it meant finding him here. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he began to walk down the corridor with Tasuki, one hand placed absently on the dagger concealed in his belt and the other gripping the sword he had "borrowed" from a guard on the first level. Now he did not fear that this was an illusion; now he feared the reality of this place. Taking a deep breath, he peered into the first cell.

"...what the #$%% is it?" Tasuki hissed, a minute later, shaking him out of his surprise, and deep, deep alarm.

Taka drew his gaze away at length. "It's-"

But Tasuki had pressed past him to look for himself. Taka allowed him the minute - as much as he allowed himself the minute to disgest what he was looking at. The cell was clean. There was even a torch in there, burning dimly in a corner, to cast light upon the prisoner, who sat very still, very straight, and had looked directly at Taka, his gaze completely vacant. Taka rubbed his chest, trying to work out what it was that was creeping him out so much; but he could not deny that he was creeped out, despite that he had expected much worse - tortured people with missing limbs and that sort of thing. But this was somehow even more disturbing.

Tasuki rewarded him by turning around, eyes so wide with naked alarm that his eyebrows disappeared under his red hair.

Then, as though with conscious effort, he lowered the eyebrows slowly. Neither of them spoke. There were times in the lives of manly warriors were they were confronted by something terrible and creepy; it was accepted that in those times you would be a bit wigged out, but, being a manly warrior, you didn't talk about it. You just growled a little and pressed on.

Taka would never forget the excruciating few minutes they spent in this dungeon. Some cells were empty, but that made it worse, because the next cell that wasn't empty came as even more of a shock - each prisoner sat and stared blankly at them as they peered in. Four cells down, Taka had a headache; fourteen cells down, he was fighting the general urge to crawl under something heavy and protective. He couldn't shake the images of the prisoners, not for a long time after their walk down the corridor of level seventeen; men both old and young, a young woman with pasty skin and hair so limp Taka almost feared it would fall off as they stared each other down, an enormous fat man and, perhaps most disturbingly, a young boy who didn't stare at them but played with some metallic blocks on the floor. By the end of their exploration, they were both silent as well, no growls or grunts, and completely relieved not to have found Chichiri here at all.

As they reached the staircase again, Tasuki stopped and spoke, in a low voice, almost as though he did not want to disturb the prisoner's silence. "Should we... Iunno, rescue them?"

Taka's heart twisted as he paused in his tracks, and thought about it. Miaka, he thought suddenly, would have not thought twice about the matter, especially the youngest boy. She would have rescued all prisoners with no regard to what they were in for or the chaos it would cause, simply because it was the evil commander who had imprisoned them. But he had no idea what would happen to the prisoners if they were rescued. Maybe, he thought, a little wildly, they were like zombies and would eat them both instantly. As he looked at the doors apprehensively, his heart plummetted sharply, for he had realised something they'd both missed in their walk through the dungeons: the doors weren't locked.

"No," he said, pointing at the doors. Tasuki made a face, and Taka realised, after a moment, that he wasn't pouting so much as he seemed to be trying very hard not to look alarmed. "Let's go, yes?"

Suppressing a shudder, they climbed back to level sixteen. It was only when they could no longer see the corridor of level seventeen that Tasuki muttered an expressive and elaborate sort of oath. "Of course it would be the one %% & (($ level we %&%^ * ( decided to skip," he said, though he looked quite cheerful for his cribbing.

* * *

It didn't take them very long to dispense of the guards on level sixteen, though there were a significantly larger number of guards. It was almost relieving, in fact, to do battle after the creepiness of the lowest level. As he slammed his elbow into the nose of one opponent, before slashing out at another, Tasuki caught himself wondering what the hell it was about those prisoners that merited the lowest level of the dungeons, below even those that did merit a sort of advanced guard. Though "advanced" was probably a generous term for this lot - clearly the royals of Sairou were more paranoid about being outside for one night amongst their people than they were about their prisoners.

A few short and useful minutes later, Taka and Tasuki looked around mildly at the wreckage. They were aware of a sharp clanging coming from some ways down the corridor - seemingly, some of the prisoners had become aware of the ruckus and discerned that it was time to make their case. Tasuki found himself overwhelmed by a sense of great amity and regard for these normal prisoners who made noises and didn't sit in unlocked rooms staring blankly at innocuous intruders. The clanging stopped abruptly and the prisoner now started yelling. The sound was a bit muffled and loud, but as they walked towards it, it clarified into loud, repeated "Oyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"s and "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeey!" and "Take meeeeeeeeeeeeee toooooooooooooooooooo!"

There was something somewhat familiar about this voice, though Tasuki couldn't put a finger on it. But as a louder voice interrupted, Tasuki stopped and felt his heart plummet somewhat.

"JUNGNEY! I don't think yelling is helping anyone, no da!"

For about fraction of a moment, Tasuki froze. He had spent a long time being Very Manly about Chichiri's absence. The truth was he had been worried about the monk for a while now - he had seemed somewhat off colour when he had come to visit him at his sister's, though Tasuki had, at the time, put it down to his sister's cooking. Then he had gone missing for a while, but Chichiri did that - he wandered, and was at his very essential level fond of wandering. Tasuki did not quite relate; he could do with a good adventure every now and again, and he grew quite stir crazy if forced to be in one space for longer than a month or so. But a month or so of adventuring also found him wanting his mountains and the bandit-routine (there was a method to it, despite all appearances). But Chichiri left for days, months, and on one occasion, he'd disappeared for almost a year and there had been no real communication.

Usually, though, somehow he knew - and Tasuki didn't waste too much time trying to figure out why he knew, whether it was the Seishi bond or a slightly more special bond for being the last two of their generation, he didn't care - that the monk was alright. This time he hadn't known that at all, but having been Very Manly about it he had ignored the depth of his fear and panic, accentuated by the fact that they were in Sairou (which was a miserable damned country, thought Tasuki, and neatly ignored that this probably had something to do with Chiriko), he found himself briefly frozen, something between great relief and great gratitude welling up in his chest.

However, this passed soon and, more apropos of a bandit leader, he ran forward and threw himself against the door, only very dimly aware of Taka, in an attempt to obliterate the damn door and everything that lay in between him and the knowledge that his friend was in there, safe and in possession of all his limbs. In a manly sort of way, of course. The door being made of very hard metal did not respond well to this.

"CHICHIRI!" Tasuki yelled. There followed a brief silence in which Chichiri presumably tried to digest that the people creating the ruckus on the other side of the door were, in fact, his comrades. Tasuki didn't care. "OY," he hollered, "CHICHIRI! YOU IN THERE?!"

"...Tasuki, na no da!? What are you doing here?!"

Now he was outraged. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!'" he roared. "WE CAME TO GET YOU, YOU %%^# *%y ( ^y%#* (#&%( ) %%&^%$* (( y&%&# FOOL OF A-"

Taka tapped him on the shoulder, making him turn, violently. "Maybe," he said, almost not amused, "you should use the tools in your pocket?"

"WHA- oh." Tasuki regarded Taka with immeasurable dignity. "Right. Of course. Was just going to do that myself." And, muttering creatively under his breath, he got to work. Taka, to his credit, pretended not to notice that the bandit's hands were shaking just a little. It took him either a minute or an eternity to spring the lock, but Tasuki managed it just fine. Then, Taka and he both pulled at the door, which came loose and crashed to the floor of the corridor, raising a huge storm of dust.

"Oh," said Tasuki, in the wake of the silence. "They may have heard that."

"I think that ship sailed a minute ago," said Taka, tactfully. "We need to hurry up."

They both turned to look into the cell.

The cell was almost pitch dark, lit only by the light that came in through the dim corridor. There was some shifting anf shuffling, before a particularly bedraggled, filthy and exhausted-looking Chichiri stepped up to the door.

That Chichiri's mask was missing was really the least troubling thing about his appearance. To Tasuki it seemed as though the monk had aged several years in the last few days. He looked emaciated, as though he had not eaten in weeks. If he had looked a little skinny when he'd left Tasuki's house, after braving his sister's cooking, he now looked positively starved. His eye - his good eye - was sunken in, and the scar across the other eye seemed all the most stark against his face. He looked hollow, beaten and tired, and Tasuki couldn't help but notice that he was limping just a bit.

The bandit took a deep, steadying breath. "Silly damn monk," he said finally, though he sounded quite uneven. Then, he grabbed Chichiri by the shoulder and embraced him.

"Daaa. Sorry about that, no da," said the monk, patting Tasuki on the shoulder, sounding very much as though he were apologising for somehting like stepping out of the house and forgetting to come back on time. Of course he had no reason to apologise; Tasuki himself couldn't really find one. But for some odd reason, this made him feel better anyway. "Couldn't find my way out, no da."

"%^&%&#( damn right you should be sorry!" exploded Tasuki, stepping back. And if he sniffed, damn it, it was just the dust in the stupid dungeons. "Do you know there are seventeen %^%^#*( ( levels of dungeons here?! And Hikari-chan is %&%^#* (# missing?! And this %^%&#* ( moron has been whinging and cribbing all over this... this %^&%&#(# RIDICULOUS COUNTRY!"

The smile on Chichiri's face stretched his skin thin, but it was a huge change - it seemed to flush his face with colour, like water to drought-ridden land. But before anyone could comment on it, the clanging began again, right next to them.

"OYYYYYYYYY!" hollered the clanger, impatiently. "YOU'D BETTER NOT BE LEAVING WITHOUT YOUR FRIEND JUNGNEEEEEEEEEEEY!"

"Oh yeah?" demanded Tasuki, as though he was prepared to argue this point all the way through. "And what the hell would we want a whiny loud ^%&&#(# &(* like you around?!"

"I told you before, traveler from Kutou," said the voice, now sounding distinctively smug. "Jungney can find things! Things that have been lost. Things that don't want to be found."

"I still don't-"

"Things like hidden passages that can get you out of the fortress without passing by the festivities!" Jungney concluded, and there was only a small note of pleading in his voice For the most part he sounded annoyingly confident that they would have to take him. Tasuki frowned, something about this not sitting right. There was something about coincidences, but he wasn't sure what it was, that didn't entirely sit right with him. It was that they were sneaky - like riddles and secrets and other stupid things that were quite useful sometimes but really didn't help a straightforward bandit in his cause. He recognised this voice now, of course; it was the beggar from the street, the one they'd met on their first day at Arudo. And that was a coincidence.

"My frrriiiiiiiiiend," the beggar now whined, his voice adjusted appropriately, as he addressed Chichiri. "My frrriiiiiiend take me with you. Haven't I told you stories? Haven't I kept you company? I haven't done anything so terrible; I am but a beggar who was caught on the wrong side of the river with... well, something. Pleeeease take me withhh you-"

"Yes," said Chichiri, before Tasuki could interrogate the man further. Loudly. "We will take you, Jungney." He cast about at Tasuki and Taka, as though seeking their assurance. But that seemed to settle it. Chichiri trusted this man; more importantly, this man had offered their friend some comfort in his time of captivity.

Taka took a deep breath and nodded. "We should go soon," he said. "We don't have much time, I don't think."

"Let me ouuut," Jungney added. "I can help youuu..."

As Chichiri and Taka both looked at Tasuki expectantly, he cleared his throat and nodded. "Right, hold your %&( &%&#*( horses, damn stupid whiny beggar..." he muttered, and brought out his tools again.

* * *

"How the %%&^ do you know of this?!" demanded Tasuki, as they made their way through Jungney's "secret passage".

"Oh, I just know," said Jungney, the smirk in his voice visibly infuriating the red-haired bandit. He was a skinny man, but extremely tall, and the smirks suited him despite his generally hungry, gaunt sort of look. He wore clothes that were somehow filthier than Chichiri's own clothes, and kept his hair out of his face with a headband that they had left on him. "Jungney's good to find things with."

Chichiri remembered the story. He belonged to a tribe of mapmakers, Jungney had told him... and they were a rare tribe. Had Chichiri not travelled as vastly as he had, he would not have believed Jungney at all; in most parts of Kounan and almost through all of Kutou, mapmakers were somewhat of a legend, a mythical folk with strange stories tied to them.

Some believed they were descendants of the first mapmaker, who stood by the Gods as they created the universe and mapped it out for them. Some believed the first mapmaker had, in fact, created the universe, drawing it out on a sheet of paper and manifesting it through his art. There were those who spoke of mapmakers as a vagabond tribe who owed no allegiance to any country or ruler and who wandered faithlessly across the realms. Others still believed they could create roads where there were none, having within them a basic knowledge of the land. Some believed they had sprung from the land itself, and thus knew these roads.

There were legends - birth myths with associated goddesses and creation myths associated with Taiitsukun - and stories and rumours and gossip about mapmakers. Really, every truth was preserved through the lands in odd stories.

The popular story in Sairou, for example, about the Black Dragon was that he was a deranged maniac of a god who decided to answer Sairou's prayers for rains in the form of deluges and floods that threatened to wash away the sandy land of the entire country, (this, considering how huge the entire country was, really seemed unlikely, but that was how stories went) until the gods sent a minor emmissary from the heavens to carve out the many canals and minor rivers the checkered the land, particularly around Arudo. Really, there were all kinds of crazy stories in the world.

At any rate, there remained very few maps of the universe, in fact, and none of them, as Chichiri knew, were really what you could call linear maps - with directions and roads and landscape that flowed into one another. The known map of the universe was disjointed; there was so much about it that didn't make sense to the lay person. Chichiri of course knew that there were codes and sometimes disconnections were roads. Sometimes where there wasn't a road you had to make one.

In fact, to the wandering monk, the idea of a map that made perfect sense was completely illogical and also a little tragic... how would you possibly get to where you were meant to go, if you already had decided where you were going?

In the current universe, maps were a rarety. Which was why, because the mapmaker tribe knew so much about the land, they were both revered and feared. And under the current rule, they had been persecuted, and that was largely why, Chichiri suspected, Jungney had been imprisoned.

Yet, you couldn't deny, watching the man as he led them through a secret passage, that he seemed to know how to "find things", as he put it. He led them with great confidence, though he would pause every now and again and assess the rocks and earth. It took them a long while - after the long while it took them to climb sixteen levels of dungeons, especially with Chichiri limping - to get to this passage, and thereafter it was rocky and confusing and winding. But he did seem to be leading them somewhere.

Something about this man was trustable, though even Chichiri had to admit that he was quite whiny and a little slimy in his whining at times (as Tasuki so bluntly expressed in mutters that were just-loud-enough for everyone to be aware of them). At one point, Chichiri had the sense that they were heading to an underground river - not because of noise, but because of the petrichor that rose from the earth. It was so fresh, so alive and so alient to his nose that had acclimated to the mustiness of the cell, that he paused and just breathed for a bit.

They did not find any river though. At one point they did find luminiscent algae on the roof of the cave, and both Taka and Tasuki seemed to be taken by this, and somehow saddened by this.

"What is it?" Chichiri asked, panting and forgetting his 'no da' in his exhaustion. The trek had been particularly difficult for him, with his bad leg and overwhelming weakness. It wasn't his body that kept him going, and he knew it; it was just his mind.

But Taka shook his head. "Nothing," he said, though Tasuki threw him a sharp look that obviously meant it was 'something'. "We need to keep moving."

Jungney had already moved far ahead - they could see his head bobbling in the green algae light.

Of them all, Taka seemed the most harrowed, and Chichiri believed there was good reason for this. Tasuki looked much the same and no worse for having spent a few days worrying in subtle ways about his friend - though Chichiri knew what it had cost him. But Taka seemed visibly shaken and anxious, and also worried about the details that Tasuki missed or assumed would just take care of themselves. Though neither spoke about Chichiri's limp - which grew steadily worse as they walked.

Tasuki slapped him on the back presently. "Don't tell me yer gettin' old," he said, but waited until Chichiri was moving to move on himself.

Chichiri couldn't stop the wave of guilt from crashing over him as he thought of Hikari and how he'd left her on the mountain. At the same time, he could feel a world of weakness on him. Chichiri still did not quite know what had happened. There were holes in his memory that he knew would fill over a period of time, which were probably inhabited by pain and torture that he could not remember.

It was an old technique, a method of saving memories2 - also a mode of preserving compassion in extreme circumstances. Chichiri believed - though he did not know for certain - that he had blocked his mind wilfully, blocking out the pain and, he hoped, blocking out the information that Commander Xiang had wanted from him. Certainly he couldn't have given them all the information they needed - for they had no reason to keep him alive. Somehow, seeing Miaka in his dream, so oddly potent and real had given him the strength he needed to remember.

And now he knew - he knew who he was, he knew how much pain he was in... he knew every excruciating wound in his body and every ounce of will it took to keep moving.

"There!" Jungney announced, finally, and turned around a corner.

As Chichiri walked towards where the mapmaker, and Taka, had disappeared, he smelled rather than saw the exit. His eye seemed to be watering and giving up somewhat, for as he turned, he saw nothing but blurry, unfocused images of ruins seemingly cast in the moonlight. But he could smell what he did not see - the dry earthy smell of the deserts of Sairou and vast, vast openness. He realised the blurriness was tears, just as something painful collided with his knees.

"Ara, Chichiri!" yelled Tasuki, and he felt someone grab him by the shoulders. Oh. He had fallen.

He opened his mouth and tried to tell Tasuki, who was now babbling furiously, that he was fine, and he just needed a few minutes' rest, but rest decided it could not wait, and Chichiri drifted back to the comforting darkness.

* * *

It took a lot of patience and Not Panicking, and that took a lot of effort. Taka was strained by the time they had established, with a lot of yelling and Not Panicking Very Loudly, that Chichiri was not dead or dying, but just exhausted from his ordeal.

"He will be fine," Jungney said, who was seemingly the best at Not Panicking or Flipping His Beans, which was something Tasuki had mastered and Taka really felt as though he was a natural at. There was no reason to panic, admittedly. They had made a clean getaway, after all. They were really all alive and no one had died and nothing was exploding. They were FINE. But the concept seemed far out of reach and Taka felt pretty damn panicky and beans-flippy. "But he needs rest. I don't think we should move him right now."

"You're right," said Taka, looking at Chichiri. He didn't want to admit it - because Not Talking About Panicky Feelings was serving them well at the moment - but seeing Chichiri so weak and wasted, so utterly frail, had freaked him out. At least his friend was alive, he kept trying to tell himself. But there were worse things you could suffer in captivity. And though he didn't want to think about it, his mind kept drifting to what they may have done to Chichiri in captivity. "Look, Tasuki-"

Tasuki looked up from his position next to Chichiri's head. For a moment, Taka was deeply appreciative of his fellow Suzaku warrior. They were still in a soup - but it was good to be in a soup with a friend. Even better was knowing that despite how freaked out he himself felt, between the two of them, he was actually the calm one. "I think we should go get our friend," he said, tactfully not mentioning Subaru's name. No need to make everything known to a common beggar, even if he was a helpful person. "Will you go?"

"You go get her," said Tasuki, adding, under his breath, "that old bat."

Taka tactfully pretended not to have heard this. "Right," he said, looking around. In the moonlight, the ruins looked almost beautiful, though for Taka the place would forever be marred by the loss of his sensei. "Okay, I'll be back."

Tasuki nodded absently, but as Taka walked away, the bandit straightened up and dashed after him. "Get my tessen, eh?" he said, slapping Taka on the back. Taka snorted and walked away, leaving Tasuki to deal with the quiet night, the slimy disgusting beggar (who at least didn't constantly call him a "potty mouthed barbarian" and therefore scored more points than Subaru) that he still didn't trust. Even if they had emerged from the prison cells and secret passages in one piece.

He looked stubbornly away, though the view wasn't much to die for. He hated the ruins. He hated everything about this idiotic country and the hatred was burning a hole in his heart - a Kounan shaped hole where he could hang out Anzu, put his annoying neices in a cellar for a few weeks and do anything except be in a stupid desert.

"How long will it take him to get Subaru?" asked the beggar, from somewhere behind him.

"Half an hour," Tasuki responded, absently.

Then, he blinked, but before he could do his obligatory double take, something sharp collided with his head and he knew no more.

* * *

_This time the darkness did not last very long. This time there was a friendly voice, and Chichiri opened his eyes to find Jungney looking at him with concern._

_"Are you okay?" asked the mapmaker, and Chichiri heard it as he had heard Miaka a while back, as he had once, very long ago, head Kouran and Hikou. Sometimes intimacy was tangible even when you were not touching; there was basic understanding and deep, complete empathy. He could feel it in ever molecule of his being. Chichiri smiled._

_"I'm okay, no da," he said, and felt the weight of those words as he said them._

_Jungney smiled. "You are," he said, and the weight of those words somehow grew lighter and lighter still, as though he were floating in this space of being okay. "You're fine... you're safe. Your friends came to get you, and we're all okay now."_

_"My friends," Chichiri said, and looked around the ruins of Byakko's temple._

_"They've gone to get Subaru," said Jungney, and smiled. "She's as lovely as ever."_

_Chichiri shivered with pleasant recognition. "I've been here before," he said, with interest. "This is were Yui summoned Seiryuu..."_

_"That's right," said Jungney. Of course, Chichiri thought, they'd talked about it before. "It's one of those places you've been to."_

_"I know," said Chichiri. Things were somehow slow. In between this moment and the last there was such a huge space that it almost seemed distant. There was such distance, he thought, between all these lands._

_"Yet," said Jungney, as though he'd heard him, "if you know the roads you can go anywhere."_

_That's true, Chichiri thought... he had been to so many places. And in his mind it opened up. He had never seen it like this himself, the lands spreading out before him in a manner that he could really see them all together, see the deserts of Sairou give way to the steppes of Hokkan, the cold frozen northernmost part of the realm give way to the craggy mountains and uneven terrain that was Kutou, and all the rivers flow through all the lands, most of them flowing through Kounan... green and rich. And yes, there were roads, like Jungney had said, and all roads had a common destination - curving and meandering though they may be, choppy and irregular at times... but they all led to one place, the place he'd always headed to when he wanted to go home..._

_And Chichiri saw it, so clearly in his mind that it was almost real, for a brief fleeting instant - the visage of Mt. Taikyoku, it's beautiful peaks and glorious pathways, and all the roads that led right to it..._

And a cold wind rustled through his thin clothes as he started and woke up, as suddenly something withrew and left him. There had been such a subtle intimacy to the conversation he'd been having, such a slowness and gentleness that for a brief moment he felt as though he had been tossed into the freezing waters of a river floor and his best friend and fiancee had both left him. In that moment he remembered distance, but then the cold dry desert wind blew againa and he opened his eyes and stared at Jungney.

"Thank you, my friend," Jungney said softly, withdrawing his hands from Chichiri's head - his aching, swimming, weak head.

As the cold surety that something was terribly, terribly wrong crept over Chichiri, he turned slightly to the left to find Tasuki's figure lying unmoving not too far away. The shock that pounded against his chest must have reflected on his face, for Jungney said, "Oh, he's not dead. I am not a murderer." Within an effort, Chichiri turned back to Jungney, who no longer looked particularly slimy and needy. He looked different, calm, collected... powerful. Triumphant. And there was something about him, something that had seemed recognisable, something familiar, almost... brother-like, and Chichiri knew he had made the mistake, the crucial mistake, of believing it was trustable.

"Who are you?" he asked, finally.

"I am but a mapmaker, Suzaku Shichi Seishi Chichiri," said the man before him, slowly. "But without that information in your head I would not have found my way to Taikyoku... would not have fulfilled my promise to our friend the Commander," he said this almost disdainfully, as though he wasn't too fond of the man in the first place. "So I thank you for it."

"Why-"

"No," he said, shaking his head and smiling, as a friend would. Chichiri felt colder than ever. "There isn't time enough for me to answer your questions about my motivations... maybe if you survive tomorrow we'll meet again. But I have to go now."

He turned, and with one last huge effort Chichiri lunged for him. He caught only cloth, but held on, pulling so hard that he head the fabric ripped. Two strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him up so he was facing Jungney. Chichiri didn't waste time staring, but lunged again, lunging wildly as a child might out of desperation or fury or longer or just deep hurt. He didn't know which, but it gave him enough strength to lash out with his fist. His hand caught against the headband Jungney wore, dislodging it just a bit - just enough to reveal the curving egde of a white character on the side of his head.

"You-!"

In this fraction of a moment of shock, Jungney caught both his wrists and flung Chichiri back onto the ground. He hit the earth hard and lay there, his energy wasted. Jungney stepped up, to stare down at him. He still seemed sort of calm, not furious or particularly bothered by the revelation. Then, as though coming to a decision, he raised his hand and whipped off his headband, tossing it to the ground. On the left side of his forehead it shone, a bright white character, the mark of a Byakko seishi.

"_Kagasuki_," Chichiri whispered, after a long minute, recognising the symbol.

"Kagasuki, Yuan, Jungney... does it really matter?" he asked, as though this was all some great philosophical debate.

Then, as Chichiri watched helplessly, he turned, and was gone.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Hello again! Well, phew! This took longer to write than expected! I am not sure why, but this part I have dreaded, relished and plotted from around chapter 14 - which was many years back, it seems - and so at some points it was like pulling teeth... while at others, various things fell into place on their own. I am not wildly happy with it, stylistically, and I'm sure my own unevenness will reflect. But I am also dying to move the heck on! Loads of the completely absurd stuff in this chapter are likely to come together soon - and some of the others, not so soon. ;) All in good time *strokes imaginary beard*

Thanks soooooooooooo much to FlashyFireBird for the awesome reviews! Keeps me going, and grinny. :D

If you're still reading, thank you so much! I would love a review but also I am so grateful to those of you who've stuck around. Big cookies all around!

References:

1. From Episode 10 in the TV series.

2. What Happened To Chichiri: Those of you who have read Terry Goodkind's work will probably recognise this. But also anyone who has issues with stress or anxiety will get this. More on this later. :)

_Disclaimers apply._


	31. 29 Taikyoku

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**  
**Taikyoku**

* * *

_"... and the point about darkness is, you float in it. You and the darkness are distinct from each other because darkness is an absence of something, it's a vacuum. But total light envelops you. It becomes you. It's very strange..."_  
~ Searle from 'Sunshine' (2007) ~

* * *

They waited, in the cold quiet darkness before the dawn.

They were nine, and they had been waiting for many days. Of course, for this they had waited for centuries, gathering patience, gaining and losing coherence, becoming and unbecoming... it had been a long time, and just because one was fragmented did not mean one did not go through the same transformations that life offered for everyone else. Change was the last aspect of humanity they would lose, and they looked forward to it. They never had been so close to their goal as now.

Four had arrived several months ago; one other had joined them recently and since then the snakes had been gathering... little tiny black beasts who came slithering silently along the mountain. They were those that would have died, and those that would have lived forever in another realm. They waited with the deaf woman, her blind daughter, the old man and the naked eel. Once the one who could not speak arrives, they knew it was time.

The last night of perseverance was almost painful.

Three were left, three who formed the center.

Jiang arrived first, carrying the Shinzaho of Suzaku. He arrived in a flurry of dark, silent, hateful magic, and dumped the girl on the ground. She was bleeding, and they tended to her. That blood was precious, after all, so very precious... so crucial to their plans. Once that was done, they left her on the ground and returned to their perseverance.

Hong Jiu arrived next, huffing and panting as though he had run a marathon - even though Jiang's dark magic had carried him from the foot of the mountain to this spot, where they had been told to wait. They regarded Jiu with revulsion; he was unseemly, ungainly. He certainly had his uses, but he was such a loathsome creature. It was easy to dissociate from him, pretend he was some one they did not know. All but the snakes and the child turned away from him.

And still they waited.

Today was the day, or so they had been told. Over the centuries, they had spent a lot of time looking for one another. When they had found each other, in bits and pieces, they had learned to communicate through specific means. They knew, between the lot of them, that Xiang's servant had made a promise. It was a greatly vulnerable space, this space of waiting, where they depended on another. But servants, unlike masters, could be trusted, if only in their motives; they knew this better than any other entity across the Universe.

The sun had nearly risen when the blind child suddenly awoke and announced that it was time. A minute later Xiang arrived, the servant in tow, his magic a lot less vicious than Jiang's. And suddenly, they were standing together, confronted with every ninth of their Self for the first time in centuries.

"Now, Yuan," said Xiang, softly, turning to his servant. The white mark of the White Tiger blazed on Yuan's forehead, looking a little incongruous with his otherwise unkempt disposition, his hair wild and his clothes unbearably filthy. "We have waited a long time for this..."

The Byakko Seishi looked around at all of the nine, his gaze resting on the child's empty face, her empty eyes boring into him mistrustfully. There was much about the nine parts of the whole that he did not understand, but only one aspect he couldn't entirely feel safe with; he wondered if she could see him.

With a long breath, he held out his hand. White, luminiscent air swirled around on his palm.

"Here," he said, and placed his palm on Xiang's brow.

They knew immediately then what the white swirling thing had been. The _Thought_ rustled through their mind, a collective knowing, a gentle realisation. The magic of Mt. Taikyoku was subtle, the path obfuscated by little spells, simple deceptions. Only the dead or the chosen could see it, they said; Yuan was neither dead nor chosen any longer, though he had been both at a time... the magic could recognise this and obfuscated his knowledge of the path. There was something rather intimate about that sort of spell.

And now, as the Thought coursed through them, the magic parted ways like curtains and that too was intimate, in a whole other way.

The barren-looking land around them began to transform, and the change was gentle and not momentous. It was a magic associated with a kind of Knowing, and the knowledge, like intimacy, transformed them... They remained neither dead nor chosen; but they were knowing, and that seemed to transcend it. The Thought parted ways and gently carressed, and eventually landed somewhere deep where it sat.

And when they looked at the land, they were changed, just a little, just enough to see clearly the path to the summit. The abode of Taiitsukun was now visible.

* * *

The hysterical shouting of the crowd in the courtyard had lasted a whole night and through half of the last day. She hoped that he had died swiftly and his first cut more merciful. She tried to tell herself that no one could live so long when bleeding out, but she feared, terribly, that as long as they shouted, Rokou lived, that every time they screamed louder it was because the knife had come down on him again. But it stopped, and was finally, blessedly over.

Chou Rokou had died - he had been killed - and she knew from how no one had come to fetch her that he had died honouring her, keeping his word to her and to the old gods.

Houki had screamed too - she had screamed until she was hoarse, banged on the doors with fists mosts unaccustomed to banging and then, when no one came to let her out and her voice gave out, she had wept.

A long time ago, when Houki had lost all her closest friends and family, all that had remained was the darkness. Only for her son would she open the doors then, only for him would she allow the sun to enter her quarters. But other than those brief moments of respite, she would live in darkness. Her nurses took to lighting the candle by her bedside before they left her in the night; she heard them whispering to one another once, about how they feared that one day the darkness would simply eat her whole. But they didn't understand. She did not blow out each candle they lit for her because she wanted the darkness to eat her; she blew them out because in those moments, she was the darkness and the candles were just wasteful.

Then, Miaka had returned and the light had come back. For a few brief weeks, the world seemed so bright that she could not hold onto her hollowness. Light had a way of pervading things, sort of like love. Houki had never loved before Saihitei, and she never loved after him; but those few moments in between had been enough for her, in some ways. They'd changed her, transformed her into the person she needed to be. Light, the kind of light Miaka carried almost effortlessly, was like that.

When Miaka left, Houki made a promise to herself, to always let the light in. She tossed open all windows and doors every morning at the crack of dawn and did not allow her serving women to close them. In the night, she lit her own candles. It was a personal religion in some ways.

Now, she sat paralysed on her bed, through the second night of her imprisonment in her own room, shrouded in darkness. She felt very much as though she had strayed very far from home, from herself and from everything that she knew.

It did not matter. Nothing mattered. Chou Rokou was dead, because of her, and nothing else would ever matter. For the first time in seventeen years, she had not lit a candle. She sat on her bed, her hands clutching at the material of her sleeves; she sat almost catatonic, the tracks of her tears having dried up a long time ago. She kept thinking of Rokou's face when she'd seen him last, accepting her request of him to be careful. Of course, she had led him to the danger, brought danger right to his doorstep.

As silence took over the palace complex and the night grew thicker, Houki closed her eyes and hugged herself and let herself drift.

It felt like it was only a few minutes later that someone knocked softly at her door. Houki woke with a start, her body stiff... she had fallen asleep with her head on her knees. For a moment she was not sure what had woken her, but the subtle knocking sounded again.

"Miaka?" Houki wondered, getting to her feet, wildly believing for a moment that the woman who had saved her before had pulled off a miracle again.

The voice on the other side was not, however, Miaka's. "Okaasama," said her son, in the most muted of tones. "Okaasama. I'm coming in."

Houki froze, astounded. It took her a conscious moment to unclench her fists and breathe deeply, and try to return to space fo dignity where she was not afraid of her own son. But what was he doing? The key turned in the lock quietly, and Boushin slipped in through the door, closing it swiftly behind him. Then they stood and looked at each other in the darkness.

It occured to Houki that it had been almost a year since she had spoken to Boushin alone, or been in a room with him without the loathsome Prime Minister. It also occured to her that she wasn't quite sure what to say - which was really quite rare for her.

"Boushin..." she began, but trailed off. She was, she had to admit, despite the terrible situation, completely thrown.

"Okaasama," said Boushin, again, with the painfully practiced formality an Emperor's son had drilled into him from the very beginning. "I- There isn't very much time to explain, but you need to come with me."

"...where?" asked Houki. She was stalling, she realised, with a stab of something like sorrow. She was stalling because she was trying to work out if she trusted her own son. When had this become so complicated and foolish? Politics were a part of the courtly life and Houki was no stranger; but she had never imagined she'd have to play games or try to guess at Boushin's motives. Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she wanted very much to hold back... and which flowed for just that reason. "Boushin-"

Boushin stepped forward and took her hand, squeezing it with great urgency as she felt herself crumble a bit more. "I know you may not trust me right now, Okaasama. But we need to go. I need to get you out before he comes back-"

"Before who-?!"

"Jiu," said Boushin, his face pale. But she felt it, the jitter in his hand - the same jitter she'd felt when she'd sat with him the night before his crowning, the same jitter he'd had when, a few years ago, things had seemed difficult with Sairou and the country had made threats.

"But where has he gone?" Houki asked, blinking back her tears now.

"I do not know. He left before the- the execution," Boushin's voice now sounded a little raspy. "He is no longer in the palace, but I do not know how long he has gone for. So we must hurry."

"Where are we going? Boushin," Houki pressed, pulling at his hand as he turned. "But you are... I thought you were-" Treacherous. Losing faith. No longer by my side.

Though it was dark, she could see his tortured, ragged expression. "Sometimes I am," he said, finally. "Sometimes I am everything he wants me to be and I do not have a choice. It has been worse," he added, "since the Miko has arrived; I know he is worried because otherwise he would not bother so much with making sure I did not stray from his plan and directives." Now he only looked sad. "I realised a while back - I do not have my father's strength. It was too late by the time I realised what he was doing... or I gathered the gist of it... I still do not know..."

He trailed off for a few moments, in which he seemed so distant that it tore at Houki. As she started to speak, he seemed to shake himself out of his reverie.

"Please, Okaasan," he said, now sounding more urgent than ever. "We must go."

"But- Miaka is-"

"The Miko is gone," said Boushin, firmly.

"_What_?! Where!?" Houki demanded, flabbergasted. "She was in prison-"

"She is no longer there," said Boushin, now sounding a bit morose. "I had a trustable friend look for her, but she is definitely gone."

There was silence after this pronouncement as Houki struggled to digest this. Miaka was gone. Hong Jiu was apparently also gone. Houki knew Miaka well enough to know that it was impossible that these two instances were not connected. What really remained a question was how this had transpired. As much as Houki did not want to believe it, the idea that Hong Jiu had kidnapped Miaka and dragged her off somewhere for some mysterious and most terrible reason occured to her as a really strong possibility. She shivered and looked at the large, but elegant hand that held her own.

Boushin... Boushin was here, she reigstered suddenly. Houki's heard twisted in her chest as she looked at her son. She wanted to ask him so many questions, to hug him close and make him run away with her.

Almost as though he sensed this, he squeezed her hand. "Please," he said, and she knew he was pleading. "_Please_ Okaasama... you must leave. You have to leave Eiyou."

* * *

The moment it was done, they began to move, saying exactly nothing. It was pretty creepy, really, how they moved silently and with no real need to communicate. The only reason Yuan knew what was happening was that he had orchestrated it and witnessed it before. The snakes led the way, only because they slithered faster. The woman and Jiang followed, while the others moved as they could. Each of the nine selves moved alone. No one even offered to help Jiang with the girl he tossed carelessly over his shoulder.

Yuan had wondered often what this said Xiang Yao, the Nine Headed Beast - his inner psyche must have been, he reflected, a hell of an unfriendly space if his selves could not stand to talk to one another.

He realised his stray and somewhat academic thought had led him to stare as eyes bore into his own. The blind girl had paused, looking back - directly at the spot where Xiang stood with Yuan, and though she could not see them, Yuan had no illusions that she perceived nothing as well. There was a frightening knowledge in her eyes that deeply, deeply intrigued him.

"You have done well, Yuan," Xiang was saying, and he turned to look at the Commander of Sairou's Imperial forces. "And now you must attend to affairs in Sairou, until I can return."

Yuan blinked, and for a moment looked at Xiang Yao with naked astonishment, completely thrown. "But-" He had been expecting to come along with them to Mt. Taikyoku. It had been a whole lifetime since he had seen the mountain or the resurrection of a god. Besides, he had his own stakes in the game Xiang was playing. "Sick of me already?" he asked, adjusting his expression back to its standard mischief, but he knew he was not going to go alone. He knew, from experience, that crossing Xiang was a bad idea. He reacted disproportionately to small transgressions and was quite likely to take his servants' heads off for bringing him the wrong kind of tea. Yuan was not going to argue. "I could help," he pointed out, shrugging as though it didn't matter, though it burned in him, the curiosity and the longing.

Xiang's black eyes gleamed. "No, you cannot," he said, in his soft, dangerous voice. "You are still first the servant of another, Byakko Shichi Seishi Kagasuki."

"When you put it like that, it sounds like Byakko Shichi Seishi_ Goose-Droppings_," observed Yuan, making an elaborate face.

"No god wants the servant of another see him in his most vulnerable form," finished Xiang, ignoring this. "He is broken right now, but he will rise. And I need my most loyal servant at the Capital."

"And here I thought I was the servant of another," said Yuan. He had tried and failed to keep the plaintive note out of his voice. Then, he sighed and shrugged. "Oh, fine. Have your precious privacy. I will simply have to entertain myself with thoughts of what you two are doing up there while I await, humbly," he added, with a bow and a flourish, "your return."

If Xiang found this amusing or offensive or even vaguely interesting, Yuan had no notion of it. Without another word he turned and walked smoothly away. He stared at him as he left, but checked himself quickly; the little blind girl was studying him as he studied the Commander. He could feel the mistrust in her eyes as he was certain she could feel the longing for Mt. Taikyoku in his. They stood there, staring each other down, for several moments. Then, she turned and followed the others, who had left her alone far behind to find her own way through sound, smell and touch, stumbling and scraping her knees.

* * *

Miaka was a bit annoyed, though suitably impressed by the irony of life. Having successfully followed Jiu to the foot on Mt. Taikyoku, she found that the bastard had magicked himself to the summit, leaving behind his wagon, his idiot horseman and a tremendously hungry and also very tired Miaka. It did not take a lot of effort to knock out the horseman, really, just a well-aimed rock - which was smaller than an amphora but really seemed to serve the same purpose. The climb to the summit and the complete lack of nutrition on the way was a whole other matter.

In her pocket, she felt the weight of the key that Rokou had passed to her. A whole day and night on the wagon had given her a lot of time to think and grieve for Rokou. She was no longer naive enough to believe that he was still alive, or oblivious enough to believe that she was not responsible.

Miaka had thought a lot about Nuriko and Rokou in those two days. She thought about Chiriko too, and how furious he had been at the notion that Rokou may not value his own life. She had seen in Rokou's eyes just that passion, that crazed desperation. He may have hoped that he could talk himself out of it - but he had to have known.. he must have believed, as he gave her that key, that he was walking to his death. She remembered how he had insisted that he was no coward, and she could not disagree, not by a long shot.

She had wanted, when she'd left the prison cell, to somehow rescue Rokou. But she had chosen, and there was no way to know whether she had chosen rightly or wrongly, to follow the Prime Minister instead. She could only hope now that she had valued Rokou and his sacrifice. It was an awful thing to say - she felt awful even thinking it, for in some way, it gave her a position of privilege over Rokou, a position in which she received his ultimate sacrifice. But then that was part of being the Suzaku no Miko, and she could not shirk from it just because it was uncomfortable. It was a lesson she had learned with a great deal of difficulty.

As she gazed up at Mt. Taikyoku, and the beautiful and wretched climb that lay ahead of her, she found herself looked at a changed mountain. Miaka remembered the mountain as bounteous, covered with rich forests and flowing rivers. It seemed more barren and rugged now than before, as though it had suffered the ravages of time and the recent turn of affairs. Peering upwards, she thought she caught a small glint of pink, but it shone only for a moment and was then gone.

Miaka took a deep breath. It didn't take too much effort or bravery for her to do this; it was not on any level comparable with what Rokou had done, with what Houki intended to do. This was her first instinct, her basic nature - leaping into the unknown with complete faith that things had to turn out for the better. There was no other way to do it, after all. Even so, she could not prevent the small shiver of foreboding from rushing down her spine as she took her first steps. Moreover, her stomach growled so loudly that she was pretty sure she'd lost the element of surprise.

Muttering, patting her tummy, and gritting her teeth, she began to climb.

* * *

They parted ways with Donghai at the banks of the Shoryuu river. He consented - very kindly, in Reishun's opinion - to take them to a functional bridge on the river closest to the road to Eiyou, and would have come further if Amefuri had not strictly turned him away. Reishun was sad to say goodbye, partly because he was the friendliest of her traveling companions. But even she had to admit that he had done more than his bidding and while he was certainly willing to do more it was not the safest of journeys for him. So with some tears that she hid from Amefuri and Eian, she said goodbye to him and they rode on.

Eian had effectively refused to speak since they had left the clearing. Reishun almost believed he was upset with her at times, for he did look rather furious and glum. But she grew wiftly certain than his glumness had more to do with Houki and Boushin and perhaps nothing to do with her at all. There was a small pain that was growing in Reishun's heart that she didn't have the time for - or that she told herself she didn't have the time for, but which came to haunt her in their hours of relentless riding. There was little to do while galloping down the road other than to think of Hikari and how she may be dead or dying or being prepared for a sacrifice, Nyan Nyan's disappearance or Eian's general lack of regard for anyone but Houki. In the broader scheme of things, it was actually the least painful to dwell on heartbreak than loss.

They rode for a whole day to reach the Kounan border. At this point, Amefuri insisted (and Eian consented, glumly) to stop for about an hour, find some food and water, before they road on again. As Eian departed to find firewood and water, and Amefuri left to hunt (almost looked pleased to kill something, even if it wasn't Eian), Reishun tied up the horses and waited in miserable silence.

Having camped by the road, they were surrounded by a thick and unfriendly looking forest on either side. Reishun was tired and her shoulder was hurting and still bleeding a little; she knew this coloured her judgement. But it was still the most miserable half hour she spent alone, the demons in her head leaping out at her so often that she felt battered and isolated and also as though she was going a bit insane. She felt hunted, almost as though the doubts in her mind were trying to attack her... as though they were watching her, giving her a wide berth but circling around where she sat - like a wild wolf circling his prey.

She closed her eyes and put her head in her hands, until Amefuri returned from the forest, her prey flung over the back of her shoulder. To Reishun, she looked more determined than ever, and she could appreciate her stoicness at this time.

As the Byakko seishi began to skin her prey, Reishun looked at her. "I was thinking about what you said before," she said, after a long while. Amefuri did not stop skinning the animal, but did incline her her just a little. "About the Commander sacrificing Hikari. The Shenu... he had said he can't use the Shinzaho, only one of us can."

Now Amefuri did stop, looking at her with open surprise and thoughtfulness. It was gratifying, Reishun realised, to see a stoic woman shaken by one's words. Perhaps it was gratifying because for the first time, it felt as though Amefuri was genuinely interested in what she was saying. Or perhaps, a nasty voice in her head told her, that was the expression she'd been craving so much from Eian that she was now willing to accept attention wherever it came from.

"So what does he want with Hikari...?"

"I don't kn-"

Amefuri stopped, turning suddenly to the left, holding her knife very erect and going very still. Reishun looked around as well, a cold sense of alarm rushing through her as she thought of the demons in her mind. For a wild moment she thought she'd manifested them and she half expected some sort of monstrous creature to burst through the forest. But, in the next moment, Eian appeared from the forest, carrying a stack of dry wood and three skins of water.

"Oh," said Reishun, and offered him a smile. He almost smiled back, though not quite, and Reishun felt the weight lift from her a little "It's just you. We thought-" But she didn't know what she'd thought and trailed off with a shrug. She looked at Amefuri, who had relaxed only a little, and was still looking out at the forest as though watching for Reishun's imaginary demons.

* * *

Hikari woke in a significant amount of pain and knew immediately that it wasn't the pain that had woken her. An enormous snakehead loomed directly over her head, looking at her with such focus that she was sure it had woken her with intention alone. This thought lost its significance in the face of extreme, mindnumbing fear that lurched in her stomach. She may or may not have squeaked.

The giant snakehead tilted ever so slightly to the left, sort of like a pug but completely terrifying, and said, "Ah," in a rather important tone. "You're awake."

Hikari closed her eyes to try to will herself back to unconsciousness. There had been trouble there too, but none of it was so terrifying as this snake. But when she opened her eyes, the snake was gone, replaced by a pallid face she had confronted much more bravely before, while defending Reishun. "You- It- You're the snake!" she informed him, not very coherently.

The man she knew to be Commander Jiang smiled emotionlessly and rose. He was a towering figure even if you weren't thirteen and on the shorter side, his shoulders broader than Eian's, his face almost as handsome (though now Hikari thougth he looked a little snake-like). He was dressed in his black soldier's garb, the white tiger emblazoned elaborately on his chest. The last time Hikari had met him, she'd had ignorance on her side, not to mention Nyan Nyan. She had met him on her feet, her chin raised high. This time she was on her back and her body felt as though it had been broken and vaguely reassembled for the Commander's amusement. It was deeply distressing, also because he simply stood there and watched her, as though she was somewhat interesting.

It took a huge effort to straighten up; the moment she put weight on her arms, the pain she had already thought of as bad exploded as though a thousand knives were slowly slicing through her arms. White lights flashed behind her eyelids as she closed them and it took her a minute to reorient herself. But she determinedly struggled and eventually found herself standing.

A torch burned behind Jiang's head, casting the room they were in with some light. It was a room large enough to be someone's hall. There was, in fact, a bed in the room (which, Hikari noted with some irritation, they had not really bothered to toss her into), though not much else. One tiny window high up added some light to the room, and there was a very ornate door to their right.

"Well," she said, staring up at his disturbingly vacant face, "what do you intend to do with me?" The words came out in a surprisingly steady tone. Somehow not having her friends around made her all the more determined not to be a coward, even if she did just come up to the Commander's chest and was, she realised, rather filthy. Her arms were coated in dried blood and her clothes had seen significantly better days.

Jiang only smiled again. "Eager to meet your fate, are you?" he asked, his voice soft. "I wonder if this is misplaced bravery or just a woeful lack of information."

"Or maybe I'm bored with these theatrics," Hikari offered, and then frowned. Had she really said that? Why had she said that?! She wasn't what she would have called an exceptionally brave person. In fact, Hikari had a bit of a problem with Gryffindor-esque pigheaded obnoxiousness in the face of grave danger. Yet here she was, saying stupid things that could be mistaken for bravado. That may in fact have been bravado. Good grief. "Um," she said, alarmed and awkward despite the mortal fear. "NevermindthatIwasjustbabbling."

If Jiang found this at all weird or even vaguely interesting, he made no indication of this. Instead, he stared at her blandly as she stood there and found herself thinking absolutely irrelevant thoughts about how her undiagnosed social anxiety was somehow more powerful than mortal fear. Then, he turned and walked out of the door leaving it open.

Hikari stared for a whole minute, decidedly bewildered. Her social anxiety was in fact quite powerful and she found herself stranden in her inability to discern what this gesture was supposed to mean. Eventually, it occurred to her that she really had nothing to do but to follow the man.

Feeling decidedly unsettled and extremely queasy, she stepped out of the door.

* * *

It became immediately evident that they were in some kind elaborate mansion or palace... though both those terms did not seem elaborate and encompassing enough for where they were. Hikari felt smaller than ever in the enormous hallway that they walked through, its floor tiled with something that looked like reflective marble and its ceiling very high up. Elaborate chandeliers hung from the ceiling but they were not lit; light snuck in from windows - huge, high windows - that were spaced out at a fair distance from one another along the huge hallway. Jiang walked ahead, ignoring her for the most part and leaving her with enough time to look around.

All in all, it wasn't terrible. Hikari had expected creepy dungeons and torture devices, but this just seemed opulent and unnecessarily huge. Just as she was beginning to feel a little less queasy, they passed by the first huge window and she made the mistake of looking outside.

Her stomach lurched quite unpleasantly. Somewhere, many many miles away, was the surface of the earth - or so Hikari thought in great alarm as she looked downwards. They were so high up that she suspected they weren't quite attached to the earth at all. Clinging onto the window frame for dear life, she peered outwards tentatively to realise they weren't in some kind of crazy flying palace after all (all things considered, she wouldn't have been terribly surprised at this point if that had been the case) but simply resting at the very top of what looked like an enormous mountain.

"Taikyoku!" she said, and then dragged herself away from the window, her head spinning unpleasantly. "We're at Taikyoku?!" she demanded again, loudly. "But how did you-"

But she cut herself off, looking down an empty hallway now. Jiang had seemingly lost all interest and disappeared entirely. Somehow this was the most unsettling thing of all - his seeming faith that she would find him, as though he was sure she had no where to go. What if she just decided to run for it, damn it? She turned to the window again, almost contemplating escape... though, really, it couldn't be that easy, could it? Her rational mind refused to compute this possibility at all on the grounds of that it was just plainly absurd.

Instead, she thought of how she had landed on this very mountain not very long ago. Chichiri had not been able to find his way to the summit then, the summit she was increasingly certain she was on. And those soldiers... they had been wandering around and looking for the summit as well, hadn't they? Chichiri had said that only the dead or the chosen could find the mountain. So how had Jiang found this place?

A deep voice spoke, then, making her jump. "It is deeply improper, Shinzaho, to keep a god waiting."

Hikari's knees shook as she looked around. The voice had sounded from what felt like right next to her head and yet no one stood there. Instead, with a great jolt, she realised that a tall figure stood shrouded in black at the end of the hallway, cast only as a silhouette in the cold blue light that the windows let in. She shivered. "Kidnapping a kid is sort of _'deeply improper_'," she said, her voice unsteady. "Keeping you waiting is just your average bad manners."

When he didn't respond to this, Hikari raised her chin. "And," she added, "um, god? You just some sort of creepy commander guy with odd delusions of grandeur."

"And you're just a terrified, and woefully ignorant, child," said the figure, now sounding bored. "Will you hurry up, or shall I send someone to bring you here?"

To her credit and incredible surprise, Hikari kept her chin raised, though a thrill of cold fear slithered over her at his words. She had this sense, this almost intimate knowledge and certainty, that she was about to die or suffer through unimaginable torture. She knew also that help was not coming. All of this she knew because she didn't believe in the sort of stories where things worked out and people rescued other people. Hikari believed that fairy tales were made-up rubbish and so she did not hope. In an odd manner, this was fortifying.

If not particularly healthy, she thought, with a sudden terrible longing for Reishun, who would have chastised her anyway.

"Don't get your panties in a twist," she said, but very quietly, beginning to walk down the hallway.

The figure at the end remained immobile as she made this painful walk, hobbling a little bit, down to him. This gave her just about enough time to appreciate that she really did not know what she was walking into. Just as she reached him, she thought of his words: it was not proper to keep a god waiting. What did he mean?

She looked up to see a face that was not dissimilar from Jiang's, but definitely more polished. There was something fundamentally the same about this man, she recognised immediately, and yet something incredibly different between him and Jiang. He also seemed to express more in his expressions, though he didn't speak, just watching her with naked interest. There was a sort of beauty about this man that Jiang did not have, though he too was handsome. This person seemed more real, more... full where Jiang had seemed empty, emotionless and void. Yet...

"You're not Jiang," she offered, "are you?"

His lips tilted upwards just a little. "Maybe not so ignorant, Shinzaho," he said, very condescending but also a little bit like a teacher who was pleased about his student's cleverness. "We are not the same. But we are also not different." He inclined his head a little towards a large wooden door to her right, carved with the same ornate designs as the rest of the palace. "He is waiting."

_Who?_ Hikari wanted to ask, but the man's expression did not inspire a lot of questions. She took a deep breath, but could not stop her knees from trembling, her hands from going cold.

* * *

The hall that Hikari walked into seemed about as enormous as a football field. The marble on the floor reflected the black in the room, empty other than the center, where a fire burned in a large ceremonial stand. Somehow, despite that the fire burned bright and huge, she had the sense of darkness pressing down around the fire, of something muting the light.

A memory stirred in her mind, a memory of a story about the nine-headed beast and the black dragon, a memory of a serpentine, dragon-like smoky black aura wrapped around Emperor Boushin...

Hikari felt very suddenly as though she was plummeting... as though something had reached into her very being and yanked viciously at her, dragging her downwards, spiraling into something dark and bottomless and infinite. A very fundamental part of her revolted against what she was about to see, and for a minute she was afraid that she woul falter and the false bravado she had summoned from some alien space would fragment. And nothing would be left, she felt sure, but her own complete inadequacy. But she swallowed down and forced herself to take a step forward, and then every step that followed was a little easier. The darkness swallowed up the walls and the door behind her and she moved faster; something about this darkness was watchful and she felt colder than ever.

As she came closer to the fire, she realised there were a few people standing around it. Instinct told her they were all "not Jiang" - except one who, she noted with some distress, was in fact Jiang - in the same way as the man who was leading her was not Jiang. She thought of the nine-headed beast and did a swift head count.

There were not nine people around the ceremonial stand, she noted - with relief mingled with sneaky suspicion that maths was in fact going to fail her again. A hysterical bubble of laughter rose in her throat and she snorted, but very softly. Maths. It seemed a million years away and somehow the least of her problems. Who would have thought there was something more contentious than maths. This made her snicker again, though this time it was tinged with bitterness and a huge sense of loneliness.

A sense of something like unreality washed over her now as she thought of how far she was from home, as she looked at each of the people around the enormous stand. There were six: a child with vacant, white pupils and bleeding knees, a woman, the creepy Prime Minister from Kounan (Hikari shuddered - he was really rather slimey), Jiang and a man who looked so old - and somehow slimy - that Hikari was not entirely certain he was all there.

As Hikari walked, she became extremely aware that she was not moving alone, and had it not been for the fire reflecting off their backs, she would not have realised that a numbers of small black snakes slithered along with her as she walked. She shivered again, nauseated, but kept walking.

The man walking beside her stopped by a spot right in front of the ceremonial stand, in the center of the small circle. She noted uneasily as he took his place between Jiang and the very old man that she could not see the edges of the hall. The darkness around them was palpable, thick, and the huge blazing flames did little to warm the place or cast any light.

Hikari also noted with some sense of unease that he left space for another between them himself and the latter. That made eight, if one counted the snakes and the empty spot. That wasn't nine. The tiny child's empty white eyed bore into her as she struggled to hold onto this idea, and not get distracted by yet another truly disturbing notion presented itself to her: the fact was, she took up the ninth spot.

"Okay," she said, to break the crazy circles in her mind. She was not the ninth head of the nine-headed beast. You couldn't be the head of a beast without knowing it, she was almost certain. "What are we doing here?"

All six persons turned to look at her as one; Hikari had the distinct idea that all the snakes at her feet were doing the same, though she didn't bother to check. She did the only thing that made any sense, and stuck her chin out.

"Not that this isn't... you know," she said, waving her hands about with bravado she did not feel, "very fancy, or that you lot aren't fascinating, of course. Who are you?" she added, before she could stop herself. "Are you the nine-headed beas-"

But she knew, the instant she'd said that, that they were, for they all bristled - the snakes by her feet stood up very erect and she was aware, very deeply aware, of great loathing and hatred being directed her way by every single person around her... and yet it was not different people; it was the same person. The same... god? God-like being?

"You're eight, though," she heard herself point out from a distance, and two of the 'heads' ... or people... smiled - the old, old man and the man who had brought her into the hall.

"You are perceptive, Shinzaho," said the latter, sounding both amused and intrigued. "Or do you see?" He gestured to the empty space she had counted as a part of the 'eight'. As she shook her head, he raised an eyebrow. "A clever guess..."

"But- you're eight," said Hikari, her voice sounding a bit small. The man inclined his head. "I mean, um, you're the nine-headed beast, so that would suggest nine ... um, heads?"

His lips twisted into an amused sort of smile. "So it would seem," he said. "But not all of the nine-headed beast is visible, Shinzaho. I am Xiang Yao, the Commander of the Imperial Forces of Sairou. I am one of the visible selves." And then he fell silent, watching her intently, almost somewhat curiously. He was not remotely as handsome as Jiang, she realised as she looked at them both. Jiang had a fragile beauty about him, made brittle by his lack of emotion. Yet they were the same, it seemed, parts of the same self.

"What are you?" she asked, finally. "Are you some kind of ... are you a god?"

They bristled again, all of them, and Hikari was uncomfortably aware of being looked at with filthy hatred. She was most aware of the white pupils of the little girl to her left, though she tried not to be. There was something in the little girl's gaze that scared Hikari the most of all, something about her scraped knees and silent fury. For some reason, Hikari's heart plummeted again and she was suddenly very, very scared. Xiang spoke, in his soft tone, speaking very slowly, and she heard him only from a distance. "No, we are not a god. We are but the servant of our god..."

Something stirred behind her and Hikari started horribly, whipping around to face nothing but thick palpable darkness that even the powerful flames burning behind her could not cut through.

Then, something shifted, moving subtly towards her. She took a step back instinctively, but there was no getting away from it - from the monstrous face that emerged from the darkness, with enormous gleaming black eyes that stared directly at her.

Nothing could have prepared Hikari for this. A scream caught somewhere in her throat and she stood, wordless, as the face came closer, the darkness moving closer as it did, until the enormous nostrils hovered just over her head. The darkness was thicker than ever, and the face was only barely silhouetted by the flames behind her, but she could see... and did not need Xiang's words to clarify...

"The Black Dragon."

* * *

For an eternity, she was made of fear.

Hikari might have screamed and stumbled; she might have fallen several thousand feet and landed painfully on a hard rocky surface, at that, but she wouldn't have known about it. All she felt was the tremendous aftermath and even later, when she tried, she would not be able to remember what happened in those first few moments that she stood face to face with a god.

She was painfully aware of how small she was, painfully aware of how helpless she was, as she had refused to pay attention to it before. But you couldn't just ignore that sort of thing, when you were confronted by something so utterly unearthly and unknown. It took her what felt like ages to remind herself of where she was - to feel tangible underneath the fear. To her greatest surprise, she was still standing, still on her feet as she looked at the Black Dragon.

"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked, finally, her voice sounding really small and shaky. It took an effort to speak, every word taking something out of her. "Is that what this is?"

The laughter that rumbled through the hall was cold and came from nowhere in particular - but she knew, because the dragon's face peeled backwards and he revealed his teeth, that he was amused. Despite that his nostrils fumed, the hall was frigid, and grew steadily more frigid, though Hikari was mostly preoccupied with his very large and very sharp teeth. When he spoke, his face did not move, and his voice, deep and rumbling - almost musical, she noted, like a cello - seemed to come from the depths of the mountain.

_How quickly you give up,_ said this voice, and Hikari felt it echo through her, sort of like Xiang's voice had echoed through her body when he had spoken in the forest. Clearly, he had been picking up tricks from his master.

Xiang Yao spoke next to her. "Kill you?" he said, as though he had not heard the god speak at all. "Whatever would we do that for, when you are so precious... Shinzaho of Suzaku. Without you, the Black Dragon will not reign free."

_You have not even tried to resist,_ the voice echoing through her added.

Unbidden, she thought of the little boy in the palace. She needed to gather the Shinzaho, he had said, it was the only way to find him - the Yellow Boy-Who-Thought-He-Was-A-Dragon. It had been a bit difficult to take him at his word in his tiny boy form, but there was no getting away from how serious that had been, not with everything that had happened since.

_Oh yes,_ said the voice, now softer, like a softly gleaming dangerous thing. _I know what you can do. You have been told what you could do... but you have not even tried, have you?_

Hikari had a really strong urge to turn around; she had the a strong, powerful feeling of being watched from behind. Of course, this was stupid, partly because she could see the enormous, gleaming black eyes that were boring into her, but primarily because it would mean turning her back on the dragon, which was a stupid thing to do.

When the Black Dragon spoke now, his voice was louder, pressing in on her from all directions rather than reverberating through her.

"You should bow," announced the Black Dragon, revealing his teeth in a wide . "You are my sacrifice and I am a god and you ought to bow to me."

"So you _are_ going to kill me," the words escaped her before she could stop herself. She would have submerged herself in self-loathing (because it was certainly easier to handle than bone-crunching fear) if not for that the Dragon peeled his face back even more to reveal even more teeth - long, sharp teeth.

Then, before her mouth decide to say something even more stupid, he _roared_. It was the kind of roar that would have sounded across the lands, through the lands. The force of his rage, the sheer volume of it seemed to crush her from all directions, as though the hall itself was not strong enough to contain the noise and it was all trying to press into her from all sides.

His fury paralysed her; she was a thirteen year old girl standing before a god - bound and broken apparently though he was. And she was paralysed.

Something pressed furiously into the back of her knees. The dragon's smoldering eyes bore into her. **_"BOW - TO - ME!"_**

* * *

**Author's Note:** We are almost at mid-point. This chapter and the next were supposed to be one chapter, but I am verbose. On the plus side, double update! I suppose by now some stuff about the nine-headed beast must be becoming clear. There is also one very small but very important clue about the Shinzaho and the Nine Headed Beast's powers in this chapter, but it's TINY. I'll be surprised if you can pick up on it. But if you have guesses, you could share them in the reviews! *suggestive eyebrow wiggling*  
Also, watch out for major author's ramblings at the end of the next chapter. Lovelovelovelove to everyone who is reading!

Standard disclaimers apply - with puppy eyes and cookies.


	32. 30 The Black Dragon Ascending

_Please Note: This is the second part of a double chapter update. I see a lot of statistics rising for this chapter and none for Chapter 29: Taikyoku, so ... just dropping in a note. If it feels a bit like you're missing something, that may be why! _

* * *

**Chapter Thirty**  
**The Black Dragon Ascending**

* * *

_"I have seen the dark universe yawning_  
_Where the black planets roll without aim,_  
_Where they roll in their horror unheeded,_  
_Without knowledge, or lustre, or name."_  
~ H.P. Lovecraft ~

* * *

Hikari heard rather than felt her knees crack just a little as she hit the ground, through no choice of her own and no great sense of agency. It seemed to her that she herself was far away - that the volume, the power of the Dragon's voice had pushed her into a space where she could not be reached. If she was in pain, she did not know it; is she cried, she did not feel it. She was beyond feeling, beyond the reach of the kind of terror that lurked just outside.

"That's much better!" pronounced the Dragon. "Everyone learns to yield. Isn't that right Xiang?"

From her spot on the floor, Hikari turned to look at Xiang, who had wordlessly taken up one of the two empty spaces in the half-circle. One space remained conspicuously empty and in her state of far-away-ness, she looked at it, and knew. She knew very clearly - as Xiang's voice echoed back from a few moments ago in her mind, _'I am one of the visible selves_ - that this, this eigth self, was invisible. She knew with even greater certainty that it was the voice talking to her.

Something around her felt amused. As though her _realisation_ was amusing. And she knew it came from that space, that ninth self, who could hear her and see her and knew every last thought in her head.

This, more than everything else, undid her.

"Oh, look at that," said the Dragon, sounding cruelly amused. "She cries like a little girl."

Hikari turned back to look at the huge dragon face, unaware of her tears and unable to stop them. She was aware however of a great sense of shame and horror. She had not even tried. She was the Shinzaho of Suzaku and she had not even tried. And now, because of her, everything was going to end. All the warriors would die and the Mikos... her mother, Reishun, Amefuri, even Eian. _Nyan Nyan..._

She heard someone cry out sharply, in a voice that she did not recognise. She heard the dripping of liquid and at length looked down. Blood dripped from a fresh cut on her arm into a bowl, held in small, calloused hands. The little blind girl stood next to her, her unseeing eyes planted firmly on Hikari's face, transfixed as, excruciatingly slowly, the blood from her arm fell into the bowl.

"That's enough," said Xiang's voice, from behind her, and the little girl took the bowl away, leaving the blood on her arm to drip down, streams of crimson against her already filthy bandages. She bowed her head and looked at the floor. She had failed. She had failed. It became a litany in her head, reverberating through her body.

Jiang's voice, closer to her, cut through her now. "Get up. Shiznaho of Suzaku."

When she did not immediately rise, he gripped her by the bleeding arm and yanked her up. Another unrecognisable cry sounded through the hall, from a distance, and Hikari realised it had come from her. The dragon was very close; she could feel his presence almost by her neck, amused and cruel, but she did not look up. She did not have it in her now. Jiang was taking her away now. They weren't going to kill her. but this did not quite register. Nothing registered but the brokenness, the complete sense of having failed and let everyone down.

She felt the amusement of the empty space, pressing into her mind as she walked out of the hall. The litany continued in her head as Jiang led her wordlessly to the corridor back to the room where she had woken up. Somehow the world was freezing now, icy air coming in through the windows. It felt like a lifetime ago; the person she had before she had left the room she now returned to had gone, and she was now something different, something she did not recoginse.

The door closed behind her and bolted shut, and in the darkness Hikari sank to her knees and put her arms around herself. In these moments, perhaps for the first time in her life, she was just incredibly small. Not armed by her awkwardness or her inhibitions, or the solid wall of logic she usually cast around herself. She was only purely vulnerable, aware of how terribly, terribly tiny she was, how vast the unknown space around her was and the mammoth failure of her mammoth task. How had they expected her to do anything in the fact of that?

It was momentous, even this breaking down, for Hikari was an extraordinarily put together kid. It was only in the knowledge that she was alone and had screwed up in what was a somewhat eternal sense that she allowed this. And so when the raspy voice crept out of the darkness, crinkled and cranky, she was not expecting at all.

"Are you going to do that for long?" demanded the voice, startling Hikari so terribly that she shook. "I only have a few moments left, you know. That buffoon is going to destroy this place."

In great alarm, Hikari cast about, breathing very fast. Indeed, it could be argued that she had had just about as much as she could handle for the day. For _many days_. It really did not help at this conjuncture that she could not see the source of the voice.

"Here, child," said the voice, just a little raspier, as though the effort it had taken to speak had weakened the speaker in the last two speakers. "Come closer here."

As Hikari took a few steps into the darkness, a shape became clear - a shape floating several feet from the ground, though it was a rather small shape and did not tower over Hikari. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but it was almost instantly clear she was looking at an extremely old woman. Her eyes were watery, almost sunken into her face, her skin like paper, crinkled like ancient parchment and almost translucent, and her hair utterly white.

"A- are y-" Hikari began, but the woman waved a shriveled hand as though wave aside the hesitation and small talk.

"Yes, Shinzaho, I am Taiitsukun," she said, raspier still. "Now come here. We don't have much time."

Hikari was dimly aware of another huge sense of alarm. Was she dying? To Hikari this seemed alarmingly likely. "What-_why_? Why not?"

"Because," said Taiitsukun, with exaggerated patience and a complete, rather distressing, monotone, "that buffoon is going to destroy my palace and my mountain. Fool dragon."

Hikari could only stare. In her utter bewilderment, she forgot to wipe her eyes or collect herself. This really did not fit in with her impression of the Black Dragon. To her he seemed, well, terrifying in an unearthly, inhuman sort of way, the kind of fear that stripped you of your dignity and made you want to crawl into a small hole. 'Fool dragon' was not really her assessment. "I-"

"He talks a lot," pointed out Taiitsukun, briskly, like an old granny pointing out all the faults in the current generation. "And he talks very loudly. I don't quite know why that's necessary, but it is very annoying."

"I-" Hikari opened her mouth and closed it firmly.

Taiitsukun nodded. "Good," she said. "Do not speak. I have very little time, as I said, so I am going to be very clear. Here's what you need to do with the Shinzaho. The mirror will tell you about the things that you cannot find and sometimes about those things you can find, but it will also speak to all true Byakko seishi. The twin Shinzaho of Seiryuu can do a lot more, but sometimes they are stronger divided. But the neckless, the Genbu Shinzaho, that's the key."

"The key to what?" Hikari had to ask, despite herself.

"The key to Huang Long!" snapped Taiitsukun, looking quite furious at her incompetence. Hikari felt the quiver of something like annoyance. Damn it, how the hell had she been expected to know this!? It was all something completely foreign and inexplicable, like Calculus or Polynomials or Cosines, though people in this universe seemed to beliebve she ought to just "know" these things. "The Yellow Dragon, you silly girl. He has to be awakened of course, it's the only way to stop the Black Dragon. You need all four, both part of the Seiryuu Shinzaho," she added, almost a little airily, as though this was the easiest of these tasks. "One Shinzaho will lead to the other-"

A deep, loud rumble sounded all around them, seemingly coming from the depths of the mountain itself. It was, it seemed, beginning.

"And how... I mean, um, when we, um, get there, how do we-"

"The ritual is in the book," said the old woman, severely, and though she was glaring at Hikari with great intensity, as though she was some very offensive specimen of human, she seemed to be fading. In actual colour, fading, blending into the darkness in the room. It occured to Hikari extremely belatedly that this was some sort of projection. "You need to find the dragon's resting spa..." She faded out completely for a minute - and Hikari, bewildered, squinted. But she faded back in, in the next instant. "...-epare the sacrifice and awaken him. It is the only way to _save the world_, do you understand?"

It took Hikari a crucial moment to respond to this. You would need a minute to respond to an allegation that you needed to save the world.

"Oh," she said, finally speaking blandly. She stared at Taiitsukun with something caught between great alarm and just general annoyance. "Is that all?"

Taiitsukun raised an expert eyebrow. "And get the door," she said, smartly, before vanishing completely.

* * *

This time he did not dream. His mind offered no solace, no comforting space of dreams with Miaka and earlier dreams, crazy dreams about Kouran. He was aware, painfully aware, as in a state of sleep where he did not rest. And so when footsteps came running up to their spot after what felt like several long hours, he knew Taka had come.

Even so, it took Taka shaking him almost viciously - or, at least, it felt vicious to his aching bones - to bring him back to complete wakefulness. And then he clutched, even then almost blindly, at Taka's collar and spoke in a voice that almost felt unlike his, in words that were very difficult to enunciate. "He's gone. He's found Mt. Taikyoku. He's not- He's... _Byakko Seishi Kagasuki_-"

Someone in the vicinity gasped, and then he heard a small wail from a familiar voice. Another Byakko Seishi. Chichiri could not stop his eyes from filling with tears at this sound, or his heart from filling with despair. It was not often that he faltered; the last time he had felt as broken as this was when Hikou had tried to drown them.

"Kagasuki - but we didn't feel... we didn't know!" Subaru was saying, her voice shaky with age and anxiety. "Oh, Taka, it could only have been him-"

"&%^&# *( beggar!" said another unmistakably familiar voice. "We should never have %*%&# ( trusted that *%& (-"

"But we knew- oh Byakko, we should have known it was him... I should have known," Subaru said, and it sounded very much like she was weeping.

Chichiri looked up at this, his own sorrow now stuck firmly in his throat; he expected to see Tokaki by her side, trying as so many people who loved did to protect her from her own tears; his absence pushed another cold dagger into his heart, even as the images swam a little. Subaru looked aghast, her face grey with worry and guilt, her hand frozen on Tasuki's head as though she had been shocked right in the middle of healing him, or just patting him a little, and forgotten to move again. "I should have known," she was saying, "Taka, I should have - he is very powerful. If he works against us..."

"Alright," said Taka, a little forcefully.

Chichiri noted, with a small jolt of surprise, that the only reason he was sitting was because his friend was holding him up; his body felt weak, in pain and in pieces, though this was nothing to what his spirit suffered.

"Subaru," said Taka, in the same somewhat firm voice. "We need to get to Mt. Taikyoku. Chichiri can take us there... but he does not have the strength right now. Can you-"

"Yes," said Subaru, instantly, moving from Tasuki's side to Chichiri's. Her hands came to rest on his shoulder and in the center of his chest, and almost instantly, he felt warmer. It spread through him like compassion did after a long period of cruelty and unkindness, something like light and warmth, which he knew to be Subaru's own chi and the undoing of the hurt that his body had suffered through the last few hours.

When she stopped, he was not whole again or any such drastic thing, but he was significantly better. He found that he could stand, and he did, though Taka supported him through this. Chichiri felt, in those moments, like a very old man, but also like a man who had much to fight for and a lot of reasons to keep living. Taka's gaze on him was as heavy as those burdens.

"_Chichiri_," Taka said, urgently. "Can you get us to Taikyoku?"

He was aware of being watched quite closely, particularly by Tasuki, who was rubbing his head almost nonchalantly at the moment. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and almost instantly remembered. Whatever Jungney... Kagasuki had done, he had undone the enchantments that had obscured Taikyoku from him. He knew the roads, he remembered his magic. And he knew one certain way of getting to Taikyoku. He opened his eyes and looked from Subaru to Tasuki and finally at Taka, and nodded. "Yes, my friend. I can get you there. I think," he added, noting his own body, "one of you at least."

"Okay," said Taka, still speaking firmly. "Tasuki, you need to-"

"I'll %&%& (* stay here with Subaru," muttered Tasuki. For a brief moment, despite the seriousness of the situation, both Tasuki and Subaru looked mildly uncomfortable and annoyed with the idea. "I'll ^%&%&# ( take her to %^&%& ( Reikaku and come find you."

With some trepidated, both Taka and Chichiri both glanced sideways at Subaru, who seemed to be doing her very best to not cringe. After a moment, she nodded. "Be safe, you two... we'll meet again soon," she added, with a certain firmness that indicated this was neither wish nor request and they'd better comply, or else there would be hell to pay. Most likely in the form of a very pissed Tokaki-spirit.

"Right," said Taka, his hand firmly on Chichiri's shoulder. "Let's go."

* * *

Someone began to bang on the door, and Hikari turned around (with a sense of deja-vu - she had turned around in shock and walked through alarming doors a lot today) almost apprehensively. Before she could move, the person on the other side seemed to realise that she was locked in and unbolted the door. And something bright, pink and tiny gambolled in and attacked her by the waist.

"_Nyan Nyan!_" Hikari gasped, almost falling over.

Nyan Nyan was sobbing but also seemingly laughing, and just her hug radiated hope. Her heart leapt. Of course, this was not biologically possible and Hikari had to acknowledge this, but there was literally a sensation of something bouncing from her heart to her throat. There it formed a lump as Nyan Nyan morphed into her little girl form and cuddled against Hikari's chest. "Nyan Nyan, how-" Hikari tried not to cling to her but failed; and at the same time squinted at the silhouette at the door.

Her heart leapt again, and this time she wiped her face fiercely, furiously, with the back of her hand. She withdrew from Nyan Nyan, carefully and, with uncharacteristic gentleness, disentangling herself from the tiny girl, and squinted at the figure in the darkness. She tried, she really did, and failed entirely, to come up with something slightly more impressive than: _"Mummm?!"_

Miaka, who had no inhibitions about sap and tears, drew a long sniff and drew her into a warm, tight hug. Hikari blinked, disbelieving, not paying attention to the pain that shot up her arms at the embrace. A part of her - the dominant part that relied so much on logic and reason, and avoided those spaces where she may be hurt or disappointed - suddenly wanted to keep her mother at arm's length, because unlike all these awful, crazy people, her mother did not give her directives or ultimatums or death threats, or force her to walk paths she did not want to. Her mother only seemed to offer complete, utter empathy - warm, safe empathy where it seemed to be alright to be all these thing she was so ashamed to be.

And it scared Hikari, though she could not have articulated why. It was unreal, completely bewildering. But here Miaka was anyway, holding her close in a warm and comforting hug - the kind of hug you gave to children when you didn't know what else to do because everything really wasn't going to be alright, but you wanted them to believe it anyway. The king of hug that meant that, in fact, everything was alright.

The doubts were so loud and niggling in her mind that they must have been radiating from her, and still, her mother held her anyway. It was almost as though it didn't matter what Hikari thought or how many doubts she had; Miaka would hold her anyway and with all her power tell her that things would be okay. And for a moment, a moment in which Hikari really was only a thirteen-year-old in the middle of a really big and catastrophic mess, she clung back, her hands clutching around the material of her mother's rather fine, soft clothing. But the the tears started to well up again, and Hikari drew back.

"How the hell did you get here?" she demanded, reverting to more characteristic rudery, sniffing.

Miaka cleared her throat, also sniffing. "Well, I rode at the back of Hong Jiu's wagon."

"Hong Ji-"

"The Prime Minister of Kounan," her mother explained.

"Ah," Hikari said, following, somewhat. Then she wrinkled her nose. "_Ew_."

"Very ew," Miaka agreed, gravely.

Remembering what she had really meant, Hikari shook herself and proceeded to glare at Miaka. "I meant, how did you get here, in this world?"

"Oh," said Miaka. "Well. Hanako brought us the book. Well, Hanako brought Keisuke the book and then the two of them took it to your Otousan, who decided to leap into the book without letting me know. So they brought it to me, and I... well, I was actually trying to communicate with you with Hanako's uniform, but-"

"We sold that at Eiyou," said Hikari, dismayed. "It was showing so much leg..."

Miaka cringed. "Yeah, that can be a bit uncomfortable."

"Right," said Hikari, her voice now terse. "You've been here before. Apparently."

"Yes," said Miaka, even more uncomfortable. "I- you're mad, aren't you?" she said, jumping into the thing Hikari would have withheld for months. But that was how it went. Hikari often found herself utterly determined to never speak of her pain or anger or even petty resentment with anyone, forever, up until the moment she went home to her mum, who cut to the heart of the matter with uncanny intuitiveness. Really it was quite annoying, and unsettling. And in this moment, infuriating.

"Ohhh, no," said Hikari, flatly, fear, stress and general exhaustion making her snappier than usual. Fortunately, she was rather good at being snappy. "Not at all. I've just been dropped into a mystical world through a book where it turned out I am actally the holy object born not of a dog-watcher and a chartered accountant but, in fact, of the sacred union between a Miko and her Seishi. And they have all these crazy friends who've been reborn, but are no less weird for it, and they EXPECT ME TO KNOW THEM but I don't! And there's Nyan Nyan, and the small tiny thing about how I somehow need to... save the world?! That doesn't sound annoying _at all_."

"Okay," accepted Miaka, sounding compassionate. Hikari growled. "You're mad. We were really - we didn't know how to tell you this, Hikari-chan, can you imagine having to explain this to someone?!"

"But you could have tried!" pointed out Hikari, not unreasonably. "Do you know I met my aunts and uncles? Like, dad's brothers and sisters? In a graveyard? While they protected me and Reishun - Nuriko, to you - from this," Miaka cringed as Hikari elaborated on what kind of creature Jiang really was, "man!?" she declared, vehemently. "Do you know how horrible that is? I didn't know them, or what to call them, and it was so ... so very awkward," she finished. Then, the pain welled up and she said what she really meant. "And _sad_! I didn't know them! And they saved me!"

"You should have known," said Miaka, after a moment's silence, looking troubled now. "They're a part of you too," she added, voicing the things Hikari couldn't say - wouldn't say. You didn't really talk about "roots" and "belonging" without feeling like a bit of a fruitloop. Or, well, most people had mastered this fine art, the intricacies of which had escaped Hikari entirely, and she inescapably felt like a fruitloop even listening to the damned words. Yet, her mother spoke and something in her was moved. "You should have known. You should have known all of it - _Nuriko_.." Miaka paused, and looked so pained that even Hikari, in her extremely emotional state, wanted to hug her. "We... decided, both of us. We were not sure..." Miaka trailed off.

The decision hadn't sat easily with either of them. They were supposed to be the survivors, the ... transcendent survivors, at that, of Suzaku and the prophecy. Both Taka and her. And they had never really sat down and thought about why they hadn't yet told Hikari, or what they were really waiting for. Perhaps, she thought, they had hoped that if they didn't bring it up, it wouldn't happen. But it had happend and here they were, and Miaka had to admit, this had been a bad decision.

"We were scared," she said, finally. "The Shinzaho... Hikari, they belong to the gods. Which means they belong to the Book. We didn't know whether... if... we just-"

"But you're the Miko," said Hikari, her heart now sinking - biologically possible or not. "You belong to the gods too."

"No, not... not in the same way. I have a connection with the gods. Taka and I, we... we chose to come back to this- to our world. We carry the powers with us, but we are not holy objects... we don't belong to them like you do. And we didn't know whether that meant..."

Hikari stared at her as she trailed off. There was a difference between Xiang hinting at this and torturing her with the information and her mother telling her so solemnly what she had wondered and suspected for a while, since Nyan Nyan had pulled her into the realm of greater intuition and she had Seen as she had been, allegedly, meant to See. The thought settled in her stomach, finally, uneasily.

"Whether I belong here?" she finished, heavily.

Then, she had to suppress the craziest urge to laugh. She couldn't imagine a more atrocious fit. How could she, made of logic and reason, belong here, in the world where rocks walked, ghosts tickled people in the ear with ghost-feathers and Nyan Nyan, well, existed?! Anyone would have been better at this than she was! Hanako would have done so much better. It was ILLOGICAL for her to belong here, she decided, and then shook herself. Almost as though also shaking itself, the mountain under the palace groaned.

"Let's- okay, we can't think about this now," she said, shaking her head as though trying to clear the cobwebs of chaos - which seemed to be the order of things here - and get back to reality - or whatever version of it the world followed. She had so much she wanted to ask her mother - more about her potential as a Shinzaho, more about the Suzaku Seishi, because they were clearly crazy, but there was no time. "The mountain is - he's going to sort of bring the place down-" A thought occured to her. Taiitsukun. Taiitsukun was alive - if she was projecting herself that forcefully, she was certainly alive. "Nyan Nyan?" she turned to the girl, who perked up immediately.

"Haiii, Kowaiineesan!"

"Nyan Nyan, can you find Taiitsukun?" asked Hikari, urgently.

"Haiiii, Kowaiii_neeesan_! Nyan Nyan find Taiitsukun!"

Pushing the door open, Nyan Nyan, waving brightly, popped into a tiny pink orb and floated out. Hikari rubbed her head. "Sun shining out of her damned behi-"

"Hikari," said her mother, pointedly.

"Yeah, alright," she muttered, and followed her through the door.

* * *

The mountain rumbled ominously as they sped through Taiitsukun's palace, Nyan Nyan leading them through corridors that seemed a lot more labyrinthine than Miaka remembered them being, as though the Palace itself wanted to make it very difficult for them to find Taiitsukun. It was kind of like the book, which had seemed old, weary and decidedly cranky. Miaka had traversed between the worlds many times in her life, but never before had she been yanked in like that... as though the book was just cheesed off and wanted her to stop screaming at it. That was what it had felt like, falling through the realms. Before it had felt painful, like a separation, or sometimes even welcoming, like she was coming home.

It was not the only thing that was cranky, of course; Hikari was on the verge of exploding with sulkiness, as was her wont sometimes. Miaka could see also the tracks of tears along her cheeks against the dirt and the blood from her injuries, could see the shaking of her hands when she wasn't clenching her fists. Really, Miaka wanted to stop and insist she get some rest and T-L-C immediately, whether or not it was the time or place, whether or not the mountain was coming down.

As they turned around yet another corner, Nyan Nyan stopped and popped into her little girl form, looking around like a three-year-old alone in a mall.

"Nyan Nyan," said Hikari, in a monotone. "Are you lost?"

"Kowaiineesan..." Nyan Nyan turned around, her lower lip wobbling dangerously. "Taiitsukun's chi weak." She pointed to the door to their left, and they hurried in, Hikari just a notch paler than before.

The room contained a mirror - huge and ornate and somewhat ... off, though they did not pause to see what was off about it. They rushed about as though wanting to tear the place down looking for Taiitsukun, but this was an anti-climatic and short process; there was nothing to tear down. All there was, was this large mirror gleaming innocuously black at them and that was about it.

"Nyan Nyan-" Hikari began, but stopped. The little girl was standing in front of the mirror, tears streaming down her face as she looked at the mirror. Was that Taiitsukun?! Hikari thought, a little wildly. Then, she was visited by a vision of the three of them trying to lug this huge mirror down the mountain side. "What is it?" she asked, kindly.

"B-brokennnn..." sobbed Nyan Nyan, looking at the mirror, which, at first sight, seemed perfectly intact. But it was not reflecting back Nyan Nyan, Hikari realised suddenly, as she stepped in front of it also.

There was something a little unreal about this mirror, other than its size and the fact that it did not reflect their images. "She could see the whole world through it," Miaka said, and Hikari drew in a breath. That was what Nyan Nyan had said too, wasn't it, in the forest? They stood there, silent and somewhat uncertain about what to do next. Indeed, there were probably a great many other rooms in the palace, but the search felt conclusive.

"I- where is Taiitsukun?" asked Hikari, but Nyan Nyan shook her head.

"Nyan Nyan n-nnoot knowww," she wailed, pointing to the mirror. "Chi here. Taiitsukun not here."

"No kidding. What do we do?!" demanded Hikari, more from her mother than Nyan Nyan, almost a little accusatively. As though to say 'ha! see how all those cuddly warm things about everything being okay are silly!', but perhaps also for some assurance that they were. "We need-"

But she stopped. They all stopped, and then turned simultaneously to look at the rest of the room. Hikari had felt this kind of thing before, a sort of cosmic poke, a complete and utterly illogical sense that Something Was Happening. And it did - the air shifted subtly, as though an invisible hand was parting ways enough to make room for the thing that popped into the room - a kasa and then something that looked very much like a shapeless blob, covered in a very familiar blue shawl.

A very bedraggled looking monk, with only one eye, emerged. He looked significantly thinner than he had seemed the last time Hikari had seen him and really quite filthy, as though he had been dragged in the mud for many days. On his face were lines of exhaustion, and his scar was white against the pallor of his skin.

"Chichiri!" Miaka tackled him, with no regard for the bedraggledness. "You're okay! You found your way out! You-"

Then, she paused, having realised that the misshapen blob was only half Chichiri. As Taka emerged from the shawl, she felt frozen between two amplified instincts - to tackle and hug and cling, and to whack on the head with some sort of blunt object for leaping into the book without telling her. And without taking her along! That bit was really important too! Did he know how much she had worried? Why hadn't he planned ahead a little?! (Never mind her own excursion into the book.) Chichiri elected to step out of the way at this point. "_You_," she finished, conclusively, still caught between frowning and tears and laughter and something like the jitterbug.

Taka settled the matter of communicating all of this and everything else by stepping up and enfolding her in a large, conclusive sort of hug. "I know," he muttered.

"You just left!" she said, her voice a little muffled against his chest.

"I know," he said, not sounding remotely apologetic.

"You made me worry!"

"I know, I know..."

"This doesn't mean I'm not angry!"

"Mm-hmm! Miaka..."

"Taka..." (1)

"Um, guys?" said Hikari, who was standing next to Chichiri and trying very very hard not to be amused or warmed by this display of affection and wanting to remind them that there would be a time and place for affectionate cuddling, but this wasn't it. Her words had exactly the opposite effect as her parents grabbed her and proceeded to administer affectionate cuddling on her. There was also a little noogieing and aggressive squeezing. At this point Hikari was compelled to point out that she was in a lot of pain, which of course led to even more affectionate cuddling and some tears. Nyan Nyan floated around, in her orb form, exuding happiness.

"No, not- we need to go!" Hikari finally managed to express, a couple of minutes later.

"Right!" said Taka, snapping back to his more determined Seishi-self. "We need to go!"

"The mountain is falling, no da," said Chichiri, in a voice that made Hikari want to reach out for him. Of course, though they had both gone through quite a lot since they had parted ways, they had neither of them changed so fundamentally that she could do that. "We could take-"

Chichiri tilted his head suddenly, and moved with a swiftness Hikari would not have expected a man who looked so bedraggled to exhibit, to push her behind him, just as the door opened and Xiang walked in. Freezing air followed in his wake and despite herself despite her mother's hand on her shoulder and Chichiri's frame blocking her protectively, Hikari shivered violently. There was a coldness about Xiang that was now terrifying to Hikari; though it was still nothing to the fear of the god he served.

"The Black Dragon requests an audience," he said, almost conversationally. "Oh," he added, looking at Chichiri and Taka in a vaguely intrigued sort of way, "you made it too."

"Of course we made it," snapped Taka, and pushed himself in front of the small group. With great vehemence and purpose, he pushed his fist out towards Xiang. It looked like he was punching the air, but very purposefully - as though he really expected something huge to happen; no one looked surprised than him at that this had not seemed to make too much of an impression on the air or on Xiang. Then, he brought his fast as close to his nose as he could without punching himself in the face and oggled at it, much to Hikari's complete bewilderment. What had he expected would happen?! "What-"

"Yes," said Xiang, now losing interest. "That will not work here. Now, if you will please, follow me."

A cold icy draft of air blew in, lazily creeping around Hikari's ankles... and tightened there. She realised a moment later that the air was pulling her along like manacles at the end of a chain. They were all propelled out, Taka and Chichiri exchanging glances. She thought there was a helplessness in those glances, and Chichiri shook his head just a little.

Wordlessly, they filed out of the room with the non-reflecting mirror, as the mountain began to tremor.

* * *

Hikari's knees shook as they walked back into the huge dark hall to face the Black Dragon. It was safe to say that there was very little in the world she wanted to do less; a part of her wanted to hide from him, make a run for it, just dash back into the corridor and scarper. But that, given the small retinue of snakes and Xiang, and that neither Chichiri nor her dad were able to make their powers work, seemed like a useless idea.

She was filled with sudden dread and fear of a kind very different from the fear that she had felt the last time; fear that had little to do with herself, and more to do with the panic she felt about possibly her father and mother being hurt, or Chichiri, who looked signifnicantly worse than she'd last seen him, or Nyan Nyan. It made it more difficult this time to keep walking, even though her mother's hand was warm around her own, warm and reassuring in that crazy way parents had, and her father beside her. Nyan Nyan, she realised, was nowhere to be seen.

The Commander of Sairou's forces had, Hikari suspected, blocked Chichiri and Taka's powers, just as he had blocked Nyan Nyan's abilities (otherwise, there was a crazier and more ridiculous explanation for her father punching the air that she did not want to dwell on). This made their situation worse than ever, really. Escape seemed impossible.

As they walked across the hall, Hikari noted that the fire was burning a lot higher. It still did not cut through the darkness in the way that candle-light had driven away the darkn in the Shenwu's cave, but it did cast the hall in perspective. There was, as it seemed, a door that they had walked in and there was a floor they were walking on, but Hikari had the sense of infinite space. Perhaps without Xiang they would not be able to find the door again, and wander endlessly in the wall-less room, where even though the fire burned brighter, it could not cast light far enough to illuminate a wall.

In the light, through, Hikari finally saw the length of the dragon. He was huge... the size of the draconic face that had hovered so close to her not so long ago had not been an illusion. He stretched out across the hall, enormous wings folded by his sides. Hikari did not want to imagine their wingspan when fully stretched out. His scales gleamed like black obsidian, glittering against the light. Wrapped around his elegant, long neck was something that looked like a very thick rope, but Hikari realised with a jolt that it was a Serpent, coiling lazily and watching the little party come closer with gleaming black eyes. _The ninth head of the beast._

Hikari realised also, perhaps because her mother was holding her hand, that the god was also bound. There were chains around his ankles, around his body, crushing his wings in place, seemingly painfully. His nostrils flared at he turned to look at them.

"Suzaku up above," said Taka, conspicuously. "That is one ugly bastard."

An enormous hissing sound echoed all around them instantly, and Hikari realised the snakes, which had been escorting them since they had entered the space, had all stirred angrily. She also realised where she got her own smart mouth from and was happy as ever to blame her parents for it.

A deep rumbling started to sound all around them, and for a moment it seemed as though the mountain was shaking. But Hkkari realised soon that it was coming from the monstrous god before them. He was amused, snickering in a way that made her hands go cold and clammy. The laughter rose from the depths of the mountain, it seemed, growing louder and louder until it was echoing all around them.

Hikari found herself more alarmed, however, by her father's reaction. He had raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, with exactly rhe sort of bravado that was out of place.

"Is this all?" boomed the god's voice. "These mortals are _puny_."

Unbidden, Hikari through of Taiitsukun's pronouncement that the Black Dragon talked big. In fact he did, and loudly so.

But so, Hikari thought, did Minami-sensei.

"And you're a god in chains," Taka pointed out, not noticing quick slashing movement behind him. "It's kind of stu-" The edge of the Dragon's tail caught him in the stomach as it whipped past them, and Taka flew several feet back.

_"Taka!"_

Hikari's heart plummeted sharply as she watched her father hit the floor and lie, for a moment, motionless. For a moment she was convinced it had happened, that the god had taken someone she loved from her.

Miaka, who had yelled shrilly, rushed to him, dragging Hikari along. To their great relief, he was moving even before they reached him; but it took him painful effort to straighten up. And when, smiling bravely at his wife and daughter, he walked back to where Chichiri remained standing, facing the dragon and his servant, it was with a painful limp.

"My lord," Xiang began, his face tight. "This is Yuan's folly. He did not dispose of this one," - he eyed Chichiri with profound distaste - "as he should have."

"Never blame the servant where the master is responsible!" declared the Black Dragon, his nostrils flaring as, for a moment, he turned with the intensity of his fury on Xiang. Hikari saw the latter flinch, just a little, but his face remained tight and without emotion. "Isn't that always true?"

"Yes," said Xiang, after a minute, his voice small and yet completely audible. Maybe it was the acoustics of this vacuous space. Maybe it was that thing about Xiang's voice that made him audible even when he was at the opposite end of the forest, or when he spoke so low that no one, by any right, should have been able to hear him and yet every word pronounced tangibly through the listener. Like he got into one's head, and spoke right by your eardrum, so that it was intimate and overwhelming.

"That's right!" boomed the god, conversely loud and enormous. "Now, we must continue the ceremony-"

"My lord, we need to remove the-"

**_"NO,_**" roared the bound Dragon, suddenly, and this time everyone cringed against the volume of his words. The Serpent around the god's neck recoiled sharply, but did not uncoil itself. In fact, Hikari had the strangest sense that the Serpent was bound to the Dragon as much as the Dragon himself was bound. **_"THEY WILL STAY! THEY WILL WATCH AS I RIP THEIR PRECIOUS MOUNTAIN TO SHREDS!"_**

After a moment, Xiang Yao bowed deeply. "As you wish, my lord," he said.

**_"CONTINUE!_**" hollered the Dragon.

They pushed her behind them, as Reishun, Amefuri and Eian had done before. Miaka's hand on her shoulder remained steady though.

From her spot behind Taka, Hikari could see a lot more than she had seen before. She could see Hong Jiu sweating and wiping his brow with a large hankerchief. She could see the woman quiver in fright from the dragon's loud voice, and the old man turn so pale he was almost the same grey of his beard.

The little blind girl seemed utterly calm and unaffected. She was doing most of the work, it seemed, while the others waited - the little snakes crowded around her feet and sometimes she stepped on them as she moved. A slow steady rumbling had begun in the hall, and gradually, it spread all around them. Hikari realised they were chanting, all nine of them, and somehow the reverberations were carrying to the mountain itself, as the floor beneath their feet began to vibrate.

On the floor in the center of the circle they had formed was a long circular package wrapped in green cloth and the bowl of Hikari's blood. Hikari felt a little dizzy as she looked at her blood.

The little girl moved as the others chanted, the dragon shifting in his spot occasionally. She carried the bowl of blood carefully, with both hands, to the stand, looking painfully like Jun would when he was asked to carry something important. Xiang, who stood at the helm, beside the fire stand, took the bowl from her, chanting continuously, and poured the blood into the fire.

The flames leapt, so furiously that for a moment it seemed they had leapt for Xiang in particular. But he stood very still behind the flames, waiting for the little girl to return. As she picked up the package on the floor, Hikari's stomach lurched with dread. Something terrible was happening, even if she did not understand it, something worse than the possibility of the Black Dragon being released. And as the little blind girl unwrapped the package to reveal a scroll, Hikari knew. The last book of the universe. The last copy of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho... even the mountain seemed to realise this, as it trembled under their feet, as the chanting grew steadily louder, deeper, more echoing...

The little girl carried the wrapped package to the ceremonial stand, where Xiang took it from her. Miaka's hand on Hikari's shoulder clamped down painfully as the Comamander held out the scroll. Someone yelled, but the sound drowned in the rumbling that had begun.

The flames leapt once more, and claimed the scroll.

* * *

It happened the moment Yui closed the door on the pizza delivery boy and turned, holding five large pizza-boxes. It began with a small smouldering, and a single strand of black smoke rose lazily from the book on the coffee table.

Hanako smelt it before she saw it and even when she saw it, she thought it was just the book trying to communicate again through images. "_Look_," she said, tugging urgently at Keisuke's shirt.

But by the time he had turned, the book was in flames.

Thick, almost black flames that seemed to be coloured with the black ink, rose sharply from the book, almost exploding so that everyone jumped back. No one seemed to know what to do for a moment, and Hanako, registering first, yelped frantically. She leapt at the book, picking up the jug of cold water Li Fen had so considerately set at the wrong table, and poured it over the book.

And still it burned, as though the water had made no different. The fire was dark, smokey; ink ran from under its covers like thick tar, burning into the soft material of Yui's carpet a little. And they all watched, helpless, as the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, reduced slowly to ash.

* * *

Chichiri knew it was over.

Light, blinding light, burst from the fire in the stand and for the first time, illuminated the space they were in.  
Even this bright light was not enough to reach the edges of the darkness, and the moment the explosion was over, darkness crept back. The flames burned vigorously, as though fueled by the sacrifice of the book, and the deep, decisive rumbling from beneath their feet told Chichiri that Taikyoku was falling, and there was nothing they could do about it.

One by the one the divine clasps on the Black Dragon ruptured. The chains, seemingly made of something as gliterry as diamonds, came undone and broke, making a shrill crashing noise, like a thousand glasses smashed. And glittering pieces of the chains cast all over the hall, as the Dragon himself made deep, rumbling noises.

Chichiri cast about the hall, but there was really nothing to cast about at. Xiang's powers had blocked theirs - Chichiri had felt it more subtly than Taka had, the moment the Commander had walked in, perhaps because he had felt it before and experienced, recently, a liberation of sorts from the spiritual chains that he seemed to cast on their powers. Without their powers, they were pretty much stripped, and it really seemed as though this battle was lost. He didn't need Nyan Nyan pressing into his chest in her tiny orb form, exuding raw sorrow and fear, to tell him that. He leaned heavily on his staff, his excursion having weakened him altogether; but he stood, as he had once stood without his powers against Nakago, alongside Tasuki.

He looked to his left at Taka and Hikari, who were looking at the book with expressions that mirrored how he felt. And then, sensing something, he looked at Miaka and realised that she was not looking at the flames or the burning Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho at all. She was looking at him, with an expression that did not rightly fit into the situation - it was an expression of recognition, or realisation.

Later, when he looked back at this time, he would imagine that time had frozen for that instant, when somehow everything was blindly clear. Miaka's voice echoed in his mind. _Will you listen to me?_ But she hadn't asked anything then, or through all the dreams she had appeared in - even the last one, where neither she nor Chichiri had known what she was possible asking for._ But you will listen to me, won't you?_

And Chichiri _knew_.

As she stared at him, in that one blindingly clear moment, he knew. Later, when he replayed in it in his head, over and over again, it would all make perfect sense. Xiang, who had taken the Seishi's powers... Taka and Hikari, who were helpless, and he, Chichiri, who could take them back home. This was the only way.

_Will you listen to me?_

And Chichiri, after what felt like several long exhausting days but was probably only a couple of seconds, nodded, just enough for Miaka to notice. Her face, tense until then, relaxed, and she nodded too, a faint smile touching her lips. The red glow of Suzaku's power and protection burned through her, and he could see it, faintly lining her small, undoingly courageous frame.

Then, the red glow burned bright, as she turned and walked firmly, swiftly, to the enormous stand as the various forms of the nine-headed beast and her family watched. She shoved, hard, with power she would not by herself have had, and the stand tipped and fell, the flames pouring over Xiang.

An unearthly screech filled the hall - it filled Chichiri's soul and for a moment, Xiang's excruciating agony was his own. Xiang was burning, and it seemed every single part of the beast was burning with him, for they all crumpled, including the Serpent. And it shifted - the clasp on his power. Chichiri felt it, the subtle but powerful magic, as it dissolved. He had to act fast now; Xiang would not burn forever. Already the others gathered around him, the Serpent around the Dragon's neck raising its head viciously and

_"What are you doing?!"_ Taka yelled, aghast, as Miaka turned, fiercely, to look at the screeching Serpent and the Dragon. Chichiri aimed for his injured leg, swinging his staff hard to have it collide with his friend's knee. Taka crumpled with an enraged yell.

As the Dragon shifted, bristling at Miaka, who was now standing glowing a powerful red, towards the Black Dragon, her arms stretched out as though she meant to physically protect them from his wrath. Yelling something, Hikari darted by Chichiri and he grabbed her with all his strength, yanking her back by her injured arm in a conscious move to throw her at Taka. Then, he took his shawl and lunged for both Hikari and Taka.

And as Chichiri twisted through space and time, firmly holding both Taka and Hikari, he heard the Dragon roaring - roaring with the a fury that made the earth shake. He saw the hall start to shatter and fragment as the mountain crumbled, saw the Dragon spread his wings and rise, the Serpent screeching around his neck, high above the tiny form of Miaka, blazing against their darkness.

* * *

**Author's Gigantic Self-Indulgent Ramblings:** Thanks for sticking around, everyone. This brings us to ... a sort of "point" in the story - I don't know if it's the middle, but it is roughly around the middle. Think of it as a sort of Episode 33. You know what I mean. :(

_Footnote:_  
1. Apologies for this... but YOU CAN'T HAVE A FY FIC WITHOUT AT LEAST ONE INSTANCE OF TAKA AND MIAKA GOING "Miaka..." and "Taka..." respectively. (a.k.a. I couldn't resist *mutters*)

_Personal Note:_  
These (last two) were exceptionally difficult chapters to write for me, because on a personal level. Not that I haven't written deaths before, but this death is more significant, especially from Hikari's perspective... and also from mine.  
The epiphany that brought me back to the story decisively was connected to what I knew had to happen to Miaka. A while ago, I realised that in most stories I've ever tried to write, I write characters to a point where they are about to lose someone terribly important to them, and then I stop. It is never a conscious decision, but it has happened A LOT - my dad calls me a "story-starter", not a storyteller.  
I think I know now why that happens. I mean... we write because we're writing out inner stories and truths; through archetypes and symbols, we're usually addressing something inside us. And some truths are more difficult to confront than others.  
Partly, maybe that was why I left for a bit, but also why it was important for me to come back and write this, so I could work out the story in myself. So now on it's all unchartered territory for me - I don't know what happens next in the story (well, other than some established things) and I am really excited to move onward.

_**Some Notes on the Story So Far:**_  
**1. Minor Chronological Blunder:** There may or may not have been a minor-ish oops with the chronology in the early part of the chapter. If you did not notice it, GOOD. If you did, SORRY. *sweatdrop* Am putting that in the list for the Great Edit of Doom.  
**2.** There is a very specific legend I am drawing on for this story - a small googling would probably reveal which one, but I'm spinning it around quite a bit - but I'm not going to tell you what it is. It will unfold, I promise.  
**3. About the Genbu Kaiden:** I wrote some parts of this story (notably "Chapter 15: Tall Tales") before all of the Genbu Kaiden was out... so there were things that I was hoping to do. I want to respect canon as much as I can, but I may be a bit selective about some things. (Also, daaaaaaaaaaamn am I excited about the Byakko tale! EEEE! I cannot WAIT to read about the actual Amefuri and Kagasuki! Anyone else excited?!)  
**4. Reviews are AWESOME.** They literally pick me up when I am at the edge of my tether. So don't hesitate.

Thanks oodles and poodles to **Flashyfirebird** and **Ayumi Tsukunami** for the reviews! And huuuuuuuuuge shoutout to **MercuryMoon** (who will read this soon someday!) for being on the other end of the internet!

Btw, MercuryMoon and I did a cover of Aoi Jiyuu, Shiroi Nozomi which will soon be available on that very popular video website under the username **Aerlith**. Check us out, and also her awesome covers of many, many anime songs!

_Standard disclaimers apply. I have no money. You could sue me for my coffee, though, I have a lot of coffee._


	33. 31 The Hour of Sorrow

**Chapter Thirty One**  
**The Hour of Sorrow**

* * *

_"Deep in earth my love is lying_  
_And I must weep alone."_  
~ Edgar Allan Poe ~

* * *

Hanako sat by the ashes of the Book, paralysed. A thousand thoughts whirled in her head, though none slowed down for her to make sense of them, creating, instead, a kind of white noise. As a result, she was not entirely cognizant of the screaming around her.

Some part of her was aware that this was not likely to go down easily, not with this group of people. Over-reacting seemed to be their modus operandi. And really, who could blame them when their closest friends had disappeared into a book and then the book had burned to ash? It was a situation that merited some screaming. Hanako herself felt detached from the screaming. Something in her was switching off from the trials and tribulations of the adults around her, much like most teenagers who have more important things to do switch off from focusing on their parents and their "adult" problems.

She did feel calmly furious with the whole lot of them, but was experiencing a special sort of clarity. The book had burned to ash with her friend still inside it and she now needed to find another way to get her back. It was very clear to her, and because she knew that everybody else was probably reacting with a scary sort of negativity, she didn't focus on them. She couldn't. Instead, she watched the charred pages drift across the floor and felt her mind becoming blank, making room for the next plan of action.

Damn it, that was what one did.

A soft hand on her arm started her from her blankness and she turned to look at Li Fen, who was looking at her with great concern. "Hanako-chan..."

Hanako bit her lip, the softness and cuddliness of Li Fen shaking her up. "We'll ... we have to find something to-"

But a loud yell interrupted her. "NO! You all need to LEAVE!"

"Yui, it's oka-"

"NO, Keisuke, it's not okay! It isn't alright for this to be happening in my house! I have a CHILD, Keisuke - I have a CHILD who met this-" Yui said something that made Hanako want to grimace, despite the severity of the situation. "-Seiryuu Seishi and THE BOOK-"

"He proves there is still an other side to go back to!" yelled Keisuke, though Hanako could see him shaking, as though his body did not quite believe what he was saying.

"No, it doesn't!" said Yui, through clenched teeth. As Hanako looked at her, she realised something that anyone being yelled at so fiercely was likely to have missed. Yui was not screaming because she was angry. Or perhaps she was angry over all the other stuff, but the stuff underneath that was something like despair. Something like hopelessness. Because the earring wasn't glowing and the book was now burnt. And if the earring no longer glowed and the book was gone, then maybe the other side was gone altogether.

Or that, Hanako reasoned, struggling to not acknowledge a sudden bubble of dark horror in her chest, was what someone like Yui would think - someone who was despairing and sometimes a little mean and cold, and who didn't let Jun-chan eat ice-cream with his Hikari-neesan as often as the latter would like.

Li Fen's hand came to rest on her shoulder, as tears slipped down her cheeks, unbidden. But no one else noticed that something horrible was happening to Hanako. Something scary and horrible that threatened to drag her away from the hope that her friend was alive.

"We don't know what this means," said Keisuke, finally, in a very strained voice. He was white and shaking visibly. "We don't know, Yui."

"No, we do. We do because if the passages were closing, he would have gone back. But he can't go back now, can he?! Can you!?" And with that, she turned to Nakago, who regarded her with a hint of calculation. "CAN you?!" she demanded, qand everyone looked at the Seiryuu Seishi with great anticipation.

It seemed to Hanako, that they were all going crazy. She couldn't stop herself from crying, but she wasn't stupid enough to think Nakago was the last word on what could or could not be done. Who the hell cared what he thought!? And yet, all the adults in the room were looking at him as one would wait for a surgeon to pronounce time of death.

"No," he said, finally, his eyes only on Yui, gleaming blue in the pristine white light she'd decorated her home with. "No, I cannot go back."

Hanako waited a whole minute. She waited for someone to speak up and remind the others that Nakago was not the most reliable of people and that he did not know everything. She waited for someone to speak of Miaka and Yui's own impossible journeys into the book. For someone to argue for their friends' survival. For hope and optimism and not throwing in the towel at the first (well, maybe not the first) sign of trouble. But no one spoke, and Hanako couldn't hold it in any longer after that.

"But he couldn't go back earlier!" she burst out, not bothering to hide the shaking in her voice. What were they doing?! Were they all crazy?! "He couldn't go back earlier either! That doesn't mean-"

"I want you to get out," said Yui, somehow cutting through Hanako's outburst with voice as soft as it was cold. "I want you all to leave."

"Yui-" began Tetsuya, stepping towards his wife. But she seemed beyond herself and everyone in the room.

"I want you to take it all with you, and get out," she said, even more softly. Tetsuya stopped short, looking horrified, as though in that moment he thought she was talking to him.

But she was looking at Keisuke, who regarded her with something like hurt and dawning clarity. As though he was seeing her clearly for the first time. The silence grew thicker, there was something incredibly impregnable about their communication.

Sometimes ruptures were loud and obvious, but at other times, they were more like neat indentations across a slab of butter or a line across the snow. Lines did not need to mean anything, and yet here was one that divided things in a manner so plain that Keisuke would for a long time wonder why he had not seen it before. It sliced through their relationship, which had always been fraternal... it sliced through him. But after a long moment, his face hardened and he turned. Yui stalked out of the room.

Silence followed in their wake. Silence, in which Tetsuya looked at his best friend with something like desperation. After a long while, Keisuke nodded, looking less stony, and bowed his head as his best friend too walked to the door and was gone.

Then, Keisuke knelt by the ashes of the book and began to pick them up.

Hanako stared. "No, but - it's not over! Maybe they couldn't rea- Keisuke-sensei! KEISUKE!" But Li Fen was kneeling beside her and wiping her tears now.

"It's okay, Hanako-sama... it's okay-"

Hanako couldn't bear it - the understanding in her eyes, the expression that one used for someone recently bereaved. "I know it's okay! It's not- why is he letting her do this?! It's not over!" She pushed Li-Fen aside, almost roughly, and heard the woman stifle a sob that she couldn't pay attention to in her urgency to get to Keisuke - who was somehow the one adult in the room she believed would understand and fix everything - to tell him to stop.

"Stop it!" she demanded, grabbing his sleeve and yanking at it. When this didn't work, she grabbed his arm, forgoing all propriety and screaming, "STOP IT! YOU CAN'T LET HER DO THIS- SHE'S WRONG, THEY'RE NOT GONE AND YOU CAN'T LET HER DO THIS!" She was blinded now by her tears and lashing out, hitting at what she would later realise was, in fact, her gym teacher. And yet it wouldn't have mattered, because it was important, it was so important for him to understand. Her friend wasn't gone. "HIKARI ISN'T GONE! MY FRIEND ISN'T GONE! DON'T YOU BELIEVE HER, SHE'S LOST HER MIND AND SHE'S HORRIBLE AND MEAN AND SHE'S NOT G0N-"

"-ARA I KNOW!" yelled Keisuke, finally grabbing the tiny fists that were battering surprisingly painfully against his face, getting soot and ash all over her. And when Hanako immediately broke down, he let go of her wrists and drew her into a hug. "I know, okay?" he said, as the thirteen-year-old cried. In that moment, he remembered how young she was, and how despite her mother-henning everyone around, she was pretty much a kid. Sighing, he patted her gently. "I'm not giving up, alright? But we've got to go now because.. because Yui can't help us anymore," his voice shook just a bit, but he got a hold on it. "It's okay... It's alright..."

Eventually, they gave up on collecting the carbon fragments of the Book. There was really no denying that it was burnt beyond repair, though Hanako, a slightly teary but entirely helpful Li Fen and Keisuke all tried very hard. So they left it there, a mess of black charred paper on Yui's expensive carpet. Li-Fen went from just slightly teary to close to hysterical when Keisuke asked her, quite kindly, to shut up about where she would live and that she could stay with him, but pulled herself together alright, even as he realised his pad was probably going to be a huge culture shock (and she had dealt with those, thus far, with a lot of wailing). Shaking his head, he decided he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Then, Hanako, Li-Fen and Keisuke turned to leave.

"I believe," said Nakago, in a rich and relaxed baritone, "that I shall come with you."

"Nonono," said Keisuke, backtracking on his great hospitality instantly. "Absolutely not-"

"Well, I cannot stay here, clearly. And I'm sure you wouldn't wish for me to roam the streets of this... settlement. Unmonitored," he added, his face completely bland.

Keisuke stared at him, disturbed. Though Nakago remained expressionless, he had a sneaking suspicion that he was finding all of this very amusing indeed. But the thought of Nakago running amuck on the streets of Tokyo - well, in Keisuke's imagination he did not run amuck so much as he glided like a creepy ancient Chinese version of a fully-nosed Lord Voldemort, but still - settled the matter.

"You," said Keisuke, with decided bitterness, "can have the bloody couch." And then he turned and stalked out.

* * *

Something collided sharply with Taka's knees, and several long moments, he realised that it was a paved yard in some sort of settlement. After the infinite noise of Mt. Taikyoku, the silence around them hit him like a brick wall, and offered very little refuge from what he knew had happened, what he had seen and realised the moment Chichiri had smacked his injured leg with his staff and tossed Hikari bodily at him.

His mind did not want to wrap around the truth, but there was no escaping it. Inside his heart was a pain that he had felt before - when Nuriko had died on the top of Mt. Black, and when Chiriko had sacrificed himself, and Mitsukake and Hotohori - a pain exactly alike and altogether different, amplified to a whole other decibel. What had then been a pain in a part of his heart, his soul, a burning hole where sorrow dwelled, was now his whole heart, his whole soul. He did not want to feel it, but it came to him anyway, the connection of a Seishi to his Miko making it impossible for the lover to deny the loss of his beloved. Was that not essential, denial? How did one go on without the denial?

He may have wandered lost in his sorrow forever if it not for the furious stirring beside him, as Hikari scrambled to her feet. He turned, trying to form his daughter's name, but she had risen and turned furiously on the monk who stood beside him.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" she demanded, in such fury that Taka almost flinched. Hikari looked ... well, whether she was terrifying or terrified, Taka did not know. She looked at the monk, barely standing against his staff, with such black anger and hatred that for a moment it seemed as though she was completely unreachable. "TAKE ME BACK!" When Chichiri did not immediately respond, Hikari grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him. And when he still did not respond, she shoved, so hard that the monk stumbled. But he made, as Taka could see, a visible effort and remained standing.

"Hikari.." Taka said, getting up, but his voice was quietened, barely audible to himself.

His daughter, her arms covered in blood, his face transformed with pain, ignored him. "TAKE ME BACK! HE'S GOING TO KILL HER! TAKE ME BACK RIGHT NOW. DO YOU HEAR ME?!" When Chichiri did not move, the fury slipped and Taka's heart broke a little at the infinite, awful vulnerability on her face. "WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING?!"

Chichiri drew a ragged breath. "I can't take you back-" he started, in a shaking voice.

"WHY NOT?! YOU HAVE-"

"There is nothing," he cut her off, as gently as he could, "to go back to. Taikyoku has fallen-"

Taka could see her reeling in her anger.

There had once been a time that Hikari had been more free, more liberated and excited. He remembered clearly how hopeful and happy she had been as a child. He remembered walked in the countryside where his father lived, under the stars with his daughter and... and with Miaka. They had talked about the stars, shining down on them protectively, keeping them safe. It was a personal fairy tale in some ways, but the fairy tale had let her down a few years after that. She had prayed to the same stars in the same field, and his father, her grandfather, had died anyway. After that, Hikari had never prayed.

She had on her face the same look of incredible betrayal she had now. Except that now she was older and the emotion lasted on her face for a minute. After that, Taka could almost see parts of her shutting down. She took several breaths, before she spoke, and when she spoke next, her voice was almost completely flat. "My mother," she said, with a calmness that was unsettling "is on that mountai- Look at me," she cut herself off, gritting her teeth.

It was a long moment before Chichiri did, his one eye full of pain.

"Hikari," said Taka, not sure who he wanted to protect. But she ignored him again anyway.

"My mother is on that mountain," she said again, her voice thickening. "We have to go back."

Chichiri's voice broke as he spoke, "I can't take you back. She's gone. The mountain is gone. She- Miaka is gone."

The silence in the courtyard seemed even more resounding at Hikari stared at the monk. Taka took a tentative step towards her, painfully aware that he had tears running down his face.

"Hikari," he said, and she turned to look at him for the first time since they had landed in the courtyard. She looked at him blindly at first, and then with some trepidation. Taka had to say it. He was her father and she would not believe him otherwise. "Hikari, she's gone. I can feel it - we can both feel it," he added. "We're her Seishi." He spoke in staggering sentences now. He could see her becoming undone and he hated himself for it. But he had to say it. He was her father, after all. "She's gone."

When she did not say anything, he took a step towards her. "Hikar-"

But she stepped back, retreating from him with an expression of pure, open betrayal on her face. And when he reached for her again, her face crumpled. "No," she said, so forcefully that he stopped - for a moment believing she hated him, believing he had failed her. With a final, broken look at both Seishi, Hikari turned and ran, leaving them to watch helplessly as she disappeared into the rooms surrounding them.

* * *

They were almost at Eiyou - you could in fact see the city wall - when it hit Eian like a swift punch in the gut, so sharp and painful that he reigned his horse in and put his hand on his chest, breathing very fast.

"What?" demanded Amefuri, furiously and he looked up, only to realise she was not looking at him at all. She was looking at Reishun, who had similarly stopped her horse and was sitting very still. For a flash of a moment, Eian felt almost relieved; if Reishun felt it too, it couldn't have been... couldn't have been someone connected only to him. Then, he caught himself."What's wrong? What is it?"

But Reishun shook her head, not seemingly able to articulate what was happening to them both. Eian understood. She did not remember her older self too clearly, or how she had died, or her companions. Not to mention that... well, in another life, she had left first. So she had no way to know what she felt - no way to recognise the painful loss of one so deeply, intimately connected to oneself.

"Someone... Someone's gone," he said, finally, articulating for Reishun what she could not do herself. Amefuri's expression remained singularly deadpan as he looked at her - it was one of those terribly unsettling things about the Byakko Seishi, her resilient refusal to emote. Eian half expected her to scoff at their pain. But she surprised him and nodded, her face adjusting just slightly so it was almost a bit respectful.

They agreed to stop for a bit, for a few minutes; they did all seem to think a few minutes of silence would not hurt. Amefuri departed to fetch water instantly, leaving Eian and Reishun to dismount and attend to their feelings (this was clearly something she felt uncomfortable to be a part of).

A cold wind was blowing, though it was early in the year yet. Winter lingered at the northern borders of Kounan for many months before swooping in all of a sudden, for a brief period. The cold wind to him felt as though something chilly had crept in - as though some part of their defenses had fallen, something crucial, and allowed the cold and unfriendly to reach them.

It was staggering, the sense of losing, though Eian remembered enough to anticipate it somewhat, quite unlike Reishun. Feeling a twisting in his gut, he helped her off her horse (this was one instance where she seemed to need some assistance), steadying her as she stumbled a little. She was a sensitive woman, so hopeful and optimistic that the idea of loss must seem quite terrible to her. In some ways, she was quite a child - there was so much about her that had always seemed very young to Eian, even when he himself had been quite young. Not that he was significantly older than her, but he felt on his shoulders a weight that had settled over this lifetime others before. Despite being inordinately strong, Reishun struggled almost visibly with the burden.

A sudden wave of remorse touched him. In a way, he had added to that burden, by offering hope when it was not rightly his to offer. As though sensing his thoughts, Reishun looked at him, her expression vulnerable and open in a way his could never be. Even now, his sorrow and solemnity came with a certain reservation.

"Do you know who it is?" she asked, in a small voice. "Could it be... Could it be Hikari-chan?"

"No," he said, quickly. He had met Hikari, and there had been no recognition, not for him, not like meeting Chichiri or Tasuki or even Reishun for that matter. He was sure that they were not connected to the god-object in the same way as they were to the other Seishi and the Miko, perhaps - Reishun's own relationship with Hikari was a different matter altogether. "I think it was a Seishi."

"Who- do you know?" she asked, with the same fragility. She had often turned to him about the other Seishi - their older memories. Becuase she did not remember as he did, with that kind of clarity. As a child she had fought very hard against the memories that came for her from the previous life. By the time he had come to know her, she remembered almost nothing, just small visions of nightmares, monstrous wolves who haunted her dreams.

But she remembered him, and she thought that meant something. So had he, for a while, believed that that meant something different altogether from what he knew, now, and the truth tasted bitter in his mouth. He looked at her, with a sudden solemness, and she raised her eyebrows, as though picking up on that he wanted to say something.

"It's different when you remember," he told her, uncharacteristically spontaneous, but also very seriously. "I wish you did. You know how you do not remember much but ... Hotohori? And for a while we thought... both of us," he added, quietly, "that it meant something, that we... we were meant to love each other."

Reishun's face was frozen, and she was looking at him with so much vulnerability that he wanted to look away. But he looked directly at her, meeting her eyes in a way that he had not done in many, many years.

"I have experienced recognition in that particular, peculiar way that only a reincarnated soul can, when we're ready to see those connections." He spoke softly, though even so, the words tumbled out of his mouth. A part of him had been tied up in not looking at her, not responding to her letters, not seeing her when she turned up or when Hikari so confidently thrust her existence back in his face. But he spoke now as it undid itself, and it felt as though he had waited a long time to say this.

"I met Chichiri after I left, and it was ... it was just the same as meeting you. I think your feelings are feelings from an older life... but only the ones you want to face in this one. Mine too came from an older life, and sometimes... sometimes they are very confusing. You look so much like... like her," he said, his voice torn. "Even now, right now, you look so much like Houki... it's confusing. And sometimes, you look like my best friend, the only one who knows me... me right now, me in this life. I... I think Hotohori may have loved him too... but..."

He paused, catching himself and drawing a long breath to steady himself.

"But you love Houki," she ventured, her voice just a little accusative.

Eian felt torn, impossibly stretched out. "I loved Houki... Hotohori loved Houki. But it isn't... that's not- I don't even know." He ran his hand through his hair, feeling quite bewildered. He also took a much needed moment to swallow down the pain lodging itself in his throat. "It isn't love that drags me back to her." Not love, so much as old memories, so much as guilt, a lot of baggage of unfulfilled duties and that which seemed to subsume love. His responsibility lay almost fundamentally with his family - and he was not sure why that was, or why had dragged himself every day to pray at the grave of one so long gone. But those were his truths, and he knew them in a way that Reishun did not know hers. It was painful to look at her right now and say what he meant, because what he had meant to say had always been painful, a difficult truth. And yet, it had to be said. "I... Reishun, you... You have loved me as no one else has. But I don't love you in a same way."

The leaves of the trees rustled in the cold breeze, as Reishun kept looking at him, the fragility of her, the frail beauty of her, all almost unbearable. Guilt twisted in his gut; he was breaking her heart, somethig he had avoided for so long, though whether it was out of concern for her or because he did not want to be the man to hurt her, he did not know.

"You ... you should go," said Reishun, after a long moment, breaking the silence. He looked at her, a little alarmed, but her expression was not one of loathing or hatred. She seemed pain, but had pulled herself back to her natural state of simply giving. "You should go on. I... we'll catch up, Amefuri and I."

"I..." Eian began, but cut himself off.

Reishun shook her head, and looked very much as though she wanted to say a lot, but was not sure if she could make it without crying. "You should go," she said, finally, almost dismissively, her voice shaking only a little.

He studied her for a moment, and then nodded, not wanting to hurt her more, not wanting to take away her space. Not wanting to breach a grief he could not possibly share. "I'll see you at the Palace," he said, quietly, before mounting his horse, though he felt very much as though this was a 'goodbye' for a much longer time. At the same time, he was visited by the idea that this was the right thing to do. He did not look back as he rode away from his childhood friend, and thus did not see her sink to the ground in a dishevelled heap, or Amefuri step out of the forests from a spot too close for her to not have heard him speak.

It took a concentrated effort to leave Reishun right now, but that was something Eian had plenty of, to bring is focus back to the present matter. Eian had spend many years disciplining himself to focus single-mindedly on the task at hand, whether it was protecting the Shinzaho or making sure the Emperor was safe. It was just how he functioned, with obstinate clarity.

Which was why when the urge to stop in his track came upon him, he knew it was not coming from him. He stopped his horse by the edge of Eiyou, not a hundred yards from the gate, and considered this. It felt a little like someone was tugging at him; someone... or something was poking him in the head on a cosmic sort of level as though to insist that he stop right now and change course. It was not him, for he would have headed to Eiyou, to the Dowager Empress and her son. That was his instinct, his decision... his prayer. This sudden clear sense of direction was the cosmos being demanding.

Not with a small measure of annoyance and worry, he looked at the bag dangling by his side, where he knew the Shinzaho of Byakko and Seiryuu were.

Then, he sighed and led his horse away from the Capital, along the road leading North.

* * *

Hikari ran until the pain in her chest began to feel like it would subsume her. She had intended only to storm into the rooms in the house and get some much needed alone time in the blessed dark. But alone meant thoughts, about her failure and about Chichiri's indescribable act and her infinite rage, and so she had leapt out of the window and just kept running.

She knew, absently, where they were - Chichiri had transported them all the way back to Eiyou. In fact, if she had spent a minute or two considering, she would have realised that she had been to the same house before, to buy some new clothes for herself. She was wearing the same clothes. In her black outfit, she could run like a crazy person through the streets of Eiyou and nobody cast her a second glance - they probably dismissed her as a particularly filthy street urchin, and did not distinguish between the dirt and the blood.

And so she ran, unhindered - with every step feeling a strange thrill, a strange sense of irightness/i. Distancing herself from her father at this point was not at all the most logical thing to do, but it was her instinct. The space between them needed to yawn out and with every step, something inside Hikari shifted, from horror and wanting to resist the horror to bitter clarity.

When she stopped running, she was at the edge of the town. Her heart beat painfully against her chest, pounding in her head, almost. But a wild notion was forming in her mind, and as she leaned against a wall in a tiny alley, determination and clarity took over pain and sorrow and doubt and nerves. The litany that had taken root in her mind at Taikyoku grew stronger, but took on a new ring now. If she could just get away from them, maybe she could protect them. She needed to find the Shinzaho, didn't she? That did not mean everyone else had to tag along and die and get hurt.

"Kowaiineesan..."

With a total lack of surprise, Hikari looked up to regard the tiny girl who had popped into the alley, tears streaming down her cheeks liberally.

And the wild idea grew wilder.

"You can hide me?" Hikari demanded, her voice hoarse as though she had been screaming for hours. The pain in her chest did not subside as she pushed herself from the wall and stepped towards a very bewildered Nyan Nyan. "You can do it, right? Amefuri found us then because of our ki - you can hide me, right? You can protect me?"

Nyan Nyan stared at her for so long that Hikari had to fight down the urge to scream and shake the girl physically. "T-Tamahome-" the girl began, but Hikari growled.

"No. No one else. I'll go without you," she threatened, though she was aware that Nyan Nyan could envelope her in pink and take her anywhere she wanted. "I need to do this. Alone, Nyan Nyan. I have to- no one else can- are you going to help me?!" she almost cried, struggling with the emotions that threatened to rise.

Nyan Nyan did not seem to register what she was saying, and stood silent, weeping, for a long time. But finally, she nodded. "H-hai K-kowaii-neesaaan," she said, sniffing back a sob. "Nyan Nyan protect Kowaiineesan. Nyan Nyan hide Kowaiineesan."

"Maybe at some point Nyan Nyan stop calling me Kowaiineesan," said Hikari, almost viciously.

"H-hai Kowaiineesan," said Nyan Nyan, now looking utterly woebegone.

Hikari smacked her forehead and revelled in it for a second... smacking her forehead was more recoginisable a task than accepting her mother's death. She pushed that aside. "And you- I can find things?" Hikari ventured. She was so busy not feeling that she was not prepared for the overwhelming mountain of sorrow that seemed to crash on her as she spoke. She could find things. She had been told ... Nyan Nyan had shown her that she could do it. But she had spent her time trying to ignore it. This was her fault... if she had only Looked, as Nyan Nyan had said. "I can find the other Shinzaho? Will you help me?"

"Hai, Kowaiineesan," said the tiny girl, though her eyes peering at Hikari felt older. There was so much acceptance in her large eyes that Hikari almost flinched. But the girl held out her hand and beckoned Hikari to her. "Nyan Nyan will help. We look. Alone."

"Yes," said Hikari, and as relief crashed over her, the walls disappeared and the flood of tears she had been holding back burst through, as she choked back a sob. It was done, she thought. She had made the first cut. But for that moment, that last moment of stepping away and venturing out on her own, she was terrified. It was, oddly, Nyan Nyan took the step she could not and took her hand. A subtle warmth spread through Hikari, and though it took a minute and it was not as though her tears stopped flowing, she found that her chest did not hurt as much.

"Kowaiineesan ready?" said the girl, looking up at Hikari, her expression childish again.

"Yes," said Hikari. "Nyan Nyan... I am ready."

The pink burst around them both, a familiar, gentle squeezing into a tiny warped space. And then they were hurtling, far from the capital, far from her father... far from everyone who, Hikari had realised painfully, could be hurt because of her.

* * *

Taka wanted to be angry, but he knew, again with completely brutal clarity, that he was not truly angry at all. It was easier to reach for the anger than it was to accept the sorrow his Seishi-connection with his Miko was so horribly thrusting on him. He wanted to rage like Hikari, but instead all he felt was broken, and scared, and completely helpless.

It was only several minutes after Hikari slammed the door violently behind her that Chichiri's staff clattered to the ground, forcing Taka to look up. Chichiri was kneeling now, looking as though he was about to keel over. Taka wanted to be angry with him too, and perhaps later he would be. But for the time being, he went to help his friend.

They were in Nuriko's old house, he knew, and remembered, without having to think about it, where the guest quarters were. It was a lot more dishevelled than Taka had last seen it, as though a lot of very careless people had stamped about the place. But the bed was where it was meant to be, and Taka helped Chichiri to it. When the monk clutched at his hand, looking at him with his single eye full of guilt and pain, Taka took his hand. "Maybe later I will have the energy to be angry with you, even though you did what you had to," he said, in a a voice that was oddly steady. "But for now you have to rest. I'm going to go look for Hikari."

He paused for a few moments outside the door, taking several long, steadying breaths. He did not know why he wasn't reacting with intense anger and bitterness and pain. Maybe he was in shock, or maybe it was that he had a daughter to take care of. His body felt heavy, as though someone had injected Lead in his veins; but he made the difficult walk to the room Hikari had departed in. For a minute, a minute that would come back to haunt him in months to come, he waited outside her door. What would he say? How would he handle this? What the hell was he supposed to say to a thirteen-year-old who had lost her mother? Let alone all of the other crap about the Universe of the Four Gods and her being the Shinzaho. He wished Miaka was with him to tell him what to do - and it seemed premature, his wistful longing, too sudden and too huge for him to really tangibly feel. But time, it seemed, was a luxury he was not allowed.

With a deep breath, he opened the door.

"Hikari," he said, walking into the dark room. And he knew immediately that something was wrong. The room was too quiet, too void of a presence. The window dangled ominously, just a little open to allow some light in, and he only had to throw it open to confirm his suspicions. "_Hikari_!"

Taka was not quite conscious of how he got to the streets, blinded by sudden fear and a sense of urgency, and complete clarity about what his daughter was going to do. This had nothing to do with being a Seishi or being connected to Suzaku; it did not even have anything to do with being an uncannily good warrior who fought with instinct and passion more than precision. It had to do with him and Hikari, and that he knew her in a way that neither of them could have explicated. She was his daughter, and he knew what she was doing - partly because he himself had done it, and because Miaka had done it.

He ran with all the speed and energy Suzaku gave him and that he had on his own accord; a man in pain ran fast, but a man anticipating disaster, harm to his daughter, ran even faster. It took him a minute to calm down as he reached Eiyou's marketplace, to take a deep breath and fight aside the fog of fear and crazy, terrifying thoughts about what could have happened to her already, in order to Look for her. But she had had several long minutes of a head start, thanks to his dawdling, and there was only a vague sense of where she was now. So he ran in the direction his instincts took him, looking in every nook and every corner, shaking every little girl and grabbing every shady person. Somehow, his powers seemed to lead him circles; when he failed to find her thus, the sense of complete and utter panic growing in him, he called out her name, over and over and over again, causing many people to turn and look at him with great apprehension.

Until, suddenly, something disappeared from the vicinity. She disappeared, her chi, her living energy - the sense of Hikari. Taka stopped, freezing to his spot in the middle of the crowded market street, looking blankly at the throng. For several long moments, he could hear nothing - his head buzzing with a kind of blankness that the sudden vaccuum had left behind. She had disappeared. How.. how could she have disappeared? Had Xiang somehow taken her again? But he knew this wasn't true, even as he thought of it and a blank, hungry rage reached for him. All of Xiang, all his damned heads and pieces, were at Taikyoku. It couldn't have been him.

As if on cue, the crowd erupted in screams around him. Taka looked up and saw the shadow of large, winged creature approaching.

* * *

Amefuri seemed to accept without too many questions that Eian had gone ahead, when Reishun informed her rather dully of the fact. But then again, Reishun thought, rather unfairly but not entirely wrongly, Amefuri seemed to loathe Eian in general. At this point, while Reuishun did not quite agree with the Byakko Seishi, she found that she did not entirely disagree either. She did not quite know what she felt, or thought, or wanted; there was a kind of buzzing numbness in her mind and a sharp stabbing pain in her heart, which she assessed was a combination of someone having died and Eian having chosen that particular moment to offer her four years' worth of rejection. There was a sudden dull emptiness that reached for her as she reached the city, but other than that, there was only white noise. The idea that now she had to ride into Eiyou and speak with both Eian and Houki together was not altogether helping either.

So when the shadow passed over their heads just as they reached the wall of the capital, Reishun did not notice at all, quite enveloped in her own thoughts. Her horse stopped, rearing a little, and she patted it down. Then, she turned to find that Amefuri had leapt off her own horse and ducked beside the wall, in a manner that was uncharacteristic for the warrior.

"What are you doing?" asked Reishun, staring at her and feeling randomly annoyed, though she wanted nothing more than to delay her meeting with the Empress.

Amefuri raised a finger to the sky, her expression markedly calm. "Dragon," she said, precisely.

The fine hairs on her neck rose just a little as Reishun turned around to look up just as an enormous black creature swooped down. She ducked too, though on her horse this made little difference. It was utterly redundant anyway, because though the creature looked huge and cast and vast shadow speeding across the countryside and over the wall, into the city, it was quite far above them. Reishun shuddered, feeling what most others in the city must have felt as well, as the screaming erupted on the other side of the wall: very, very small.

"Come on," said Reishun, though Amefuri was already on her horse.

They raced to the nearest gate, past terrified guards and saw him immediately. He was a magnificent creature, with black scales that gleamed powerfully in the sunlight. There was a richness to the texture of his scales and skin, a certain haughty power to the elegant cover of his neck and tyhe flaring of his enormous nostrils. He had curled himself around the pagoda of Suzaku's temple in the Palace grounds and was now looking out into the city with lazy conscension, a kind of regal scorn. Under his massive frame, the temple looked like a tiny, uncomfortable stool. As people screamed and shouted and ran, he raised his mighty head and let out an enormous, blood-curdling, intimidating roar.

Reishun felt the sound actually hit her like a wall, and her horse took several terrified steps backwards. Had she not taken a minute then to soothe the creature, she would have missed it - because the crowd was thick and slowed down in response to the Dragon's scream. But, as she patted her horse very gently and bent over to whisper soothingly in his ear, she saw it - a gleam of red amidst the dusty brown.

"ACK!" she yelped, right in her horse's ear, making him stamp around a bit more.

An eerie silence had fallen all over the streets of Eiyou, though Reishun hardly noticed it as she dismounted, barely registering Amefuri cursing. People, it seemed, were frozen in complete fear, which did make it a little easier to run through the crowd towards where Reishun thought she'd seen the red gleam coming from. She bumped into people rather rudely, knocking several people over before remembering that she, of all people, needed to be a bit more careful while bumping into people. When she cast up briefly to look at the monstrous sight of the Black Dragon atop Suzaku's temple, she found him rearing, though unmoving, as though he was simply basking in the fear he had caused.

It was only by her standards that she was gentle while grabbing people's arms to look at them. In fact, she almost missed him - a part of her was beginning to think she had imagined it altogether when she finally grabbed a man in very fine, exotic clothing (silk, from the west, she registered with some admiration despite the situation) and stared, with a notable touch of disappointment that he was not who she thought he was, at his blindly raw, unregistering face. And for a brief moment, the sign of "Oni" peered back at her, and his eyes shifted slightly, as though he saw her.

"Oh," she said, rather inarticulately. She had no time to make amends either, as Amefuri caught up and grabbed both their arms.

"Move," she said, rather authoritative. "Now. Move."

But just then, with another, shorter but no less louder roar, the Dragon reared, taking off from the temple. People screamed and shrieked again, ducking as this time he swept so low over the streets that his wings and tail crashed into someone of the higher buildings, bringing brick and rubble crashing down on the crowd. Reishun yanked the man down to duck as he swept over them, and, in the next moment, Amefuri yanked them both so hard that she almost fell over.

"_Move_!" almost snarled the Byakko Seishi, and they did.

Reishun caught, out of the corner of her eye, sight of the Dragon soaring into the air in an elegant curve, swooping to the left of the city. She realised what he was about to do before Amefuri had pulled them into an alleyway and was urging them along, but thoug the sound of a giang dragon crashing into the formerly glorious Suzaku temple did not come as a surprise, Reishun cringed, her insides turning. It was not a religious thing, she did not remember ever really praying to Suzaku, though her parents had taken it very seriously after realising that her nightmares came from a previous life and meant that she was a Suzaku Seishi, and not possessed, and offered sacrifices at the temple whenever they had visited Eiyou. And it was symbolic, the Dragon murdering the abode of the god she served. Even if it was not the only abode, and certainly, it was very unlikely that he actually lived there. But, really, it was quite gut-wrenching.

A deep voice boomed through the the city streets, like a cold, forceful sort of breeze. The Dragon was speaking.

**People of Kounan, he began. The old gods are dead and it is time that you all acknowledge the greater powers in the universe...**

She realised, as the Byakko Seishi led them through the alleys, that she was crying, a sub-conscious venting of sorrow that had simply built up way higher than her threshold, crying from a part of her that was older than her seventeen years, a part that lamented the loss of the symbol in a way that she could not understand it.

**...I, Gong Gong, am your new master. Throw out all those evil images and visages of the old gods. Throw them out or you will be found guilty...**

Amefuri led them through narrow alleyways. It became very clear that she knew exactly where she was going, as she led them through the paved narrow paths that gave way to slightly more clean and wider lanes that marked that this was where the wealthier occupants of the city lived. When they were in a more secluded spot, the man they had dragged along stopped.

"Wait," he said. He was, Reishun noted, a fairly handsome man; his features were just slightly exotic, though nothing like the westerners. He was dressed in Sairou's clothing, the finer kind, but looked... and also sounded rather different. "Who are you?" he asked, looking not at Reishun so much as at Amefuri, more than a little distrustfully.

Reishun began to speak, but the Byakko Seishi cut her off. "A friend of the queen's," she said, evenly. And though she had not seemed to feel the need to question the man before, now - almost as though she was a little offended - she turned to question him. "Who are you? Why the hell are you dressed in Sairou's clothing?" In other words, why should she trust him anymore than he trusted her?

"There's no time," Reishun said, partly because she wanted to smooth over their mistrust. They both seemed to trust her, and that, she felt was enough. A Suzaku Seishi would fight with them, she was sure of it, and she felt the strong tug of camraderie. But at the same time, she felt fearful for him, almost sorry for him. The instinctive empathy in her made her want to reach out to him as she would a brother having a really bad time.

"I am... Suzaku Seishi Tamahome," he said, quietly, raising his hair so they could look clearly at his mark. "But you can call me Taka-"

"You're Hikari's father," said Reishun, staring at him. But this, it seemed, had not been the wisest of things to say, for his face transformed to raw sorrow. Reishun felt a small burst of fear. She stepped towards him and grabbed his wrist urgently. "Is she okay?!"

"I- I don't know," he finished, quietly. "She was here, but her chi - she just..."

Reishun stared at him, not sure if this meant she could stop being afraid. Probably not. She let go of his wrist and breathed. "We felt something - Eia- my friend and I... something left, someone died- that's what it felt like-"

"No, that was not Hikari. That Miaka," he said, his voice ragged. Reishun only barely knew the name, but a lot of the pain she had felt in the last hour fell into place, as he spoke, with a certain finality. "Miaka's dead."

Silence fell between them at this pronouncement, broken only by the indefinite sound of the dragon's booming voice. It hit her just about as hard as the Dragon's roar had, almost as though she had been physically pushed. Miaka. The Suzaku no Miko. Hikari's mother. And her... Nuriko's friend. Reishun realised, rather belatedly, what was coursing through her was something like the fire-bird's own sorrow, the tears she shed were the phoenix's tears, and her own pain at rejection had somehow become one with the larger sorrow. The tears did not heal her; instead she felt stagnant, as though the power of Suzaku had truly been destroyed with the temple.

"We have to keep moving," Reishun heard Amefuri say, and was really quite grateful for her terseness in this moment.

"No- I left Chi- another friend back-"

"Where is he?" Amefuri asked, catching on a lot faster than Reishun could have hoped to at the moment.

"In the market district," said Taka. "The old Chou house."

"I'll go get him," said Amefuri, immediately.

"He's not well, we... we should go together," Taka said, meeting her grey, almost stony eyes with his. They seemed in that moment, Reishun thought they looked incredibly different - one so raw and so full of emotion, and the other stoic. But they seemed to come to some sort of understanding in that moment, and Amefuri nodded. "Okay. You-"

"I'm coming too," Reishun said, quickly, looking at Amefuri quite fiercely. This did not seem to make too much of an impression, other than to make Amefuri look somewhat irritated. But as the Byakko Seishi opened her mouth to speak, Reishun cleared her throat pointedly. "I can carry people better than most and I'm coming."

"Fine," growled the Byakko Seishi, as though somehow this was deeply annoying.

But the man reached and touched Reishun's arm lightly, as though suddenly recognising her. "Nuriko," he said, very quietly. And though she could feel the sign on her ...chest? check please She felt distinctively uncomfortable as she turned to look at him, as though something in her almost wanted to turn away from the recognition. Reishun was not by any stretch of imagination an emotionally stunted individual. But even for her, this had been a series of extreme circumstances all crammed into a very short space of time. There was, her mind seemed to recognise, simply not enough time or space for her to register it all.

"Okay," said Amefuri, stepping in quickly, almost as though she knew what Reishun was feeling. Of course, Amefuri was what one would call emotionally stunted, and so this was very unlikely. But she did seem clear and very much in charge. It was almost gratifying, Reishun reflected, oddly grateful for the woman. "You go ahead - the both of you."

"What about you?" asked Reishun, suddenly worried. "It's not safe." Then, as the Byakko Seishi just at her, she amended her statement, "I mean, where are you going?"

"We need to find a way to get to," she cast a paranoid sort of look about, and finished very quietly, "the Empress. There are people in the city who support the old Gods. I will find her, and then I will find you. Don't leave the old house." She looked at Reishun with such sureness, that Reishun almost flinched. The same unbidden thought came to her - about wanting something, in this case assurance, so terribly that she was now seeing it in the most unlikely of places. But she shoved it away, as Amefuri cleared her throat. "Unless it's dangerous, of course. Go," she finished, shortly, and turned and left immediately herself, leaving Reishun to follow Taka.

* * *

It took them a painfully short time to get back to the old house - too short, Reishun felt later, because it gave her so much time to struggle with herself and her old memories. Taka had looked at her as she entered the house through the window that Hikari had evidently left open, as though he expected her to recognise the place. When she did not, he told her it was Nuriko's old house. Then she did recognise it, though not as Nuriko's house but the house from which her mother and her had bought clothes so often when they had travelled to Eiyou.

Why was it empty now? Taka had no answers and she did not have the heart to really question him. Explanations would follow when Amefuri returned and the thin, ragged monk resting in the inner chambers awoke. The monk was Suzaku Seishi Chichiri, Taka informed her, then for the most of it he fell silent, leaving her to make her own connections and deal with her own unanswered questions.

Where was Hikari? And Nyan Nyan, at that? Reishun wondered if this disappearance of Hikari had something to do with Nyan Nyan, like the time before - perhaps the tiny goddess had realised that the Black Dragon was on his way and taken her away. She shared this with Taka and saw his face light up with such hope that she was more terrified than ever of being wrong. After that, she just fell silent, and waited.

Towards the evening, their silence was broken by a general uproar. They both rushed out into the courtyard just as the dragon took flight. A little while after that, Reishun heard the stamping of soldiers as they passed by each house. Taka and she ducked out of the way, but they did not seem to need to - the soldiers ignored the house entirely. The streets were soon filled with the sounds of things breaking, as though everyone was throwing crockery around. It seemed strange until Reishun realised that they were getting rid of the images and idols they had had in their houses of the old gods, all signs of the old faith being broken to pieces.

It was dark, thick night that descended on Eiyou. Reishun tried and failed to sleep, trying to ignore a niggling sense of nausea at the pit of her tummy from what she could not deny was anxiety about Hikari, and Nyan Nyan, and Eian, and Amefuri. Especially the Byakko Seishi. They did not even have the Seishi bond, so if something did happen to her, she wouldn't know. The demons crept around her, and she huddled into a room that seemed even more familiar than the demons, and tried not to think of who had lived there before and where they were now.

Several long, cold hours later, Amefuri returned.

It was very late, and quite cold by Kounan's standards. The Byakko Seishi arrived swiftly and quietly, and insisted on checking the house first, despite Reishun's weak protests that they had done the same a few hours ago (though arguing with Amefuri with an agenda was very much like bumping ones head against a very stubborn wall). Once she was satisfied, Amefuri revealed that she was not alone. She led in two shrouded figures, who did not remove their hoods until they were securely in Chichiri's chambers.

Then, they pushed off their hoods, to reveal a very old and distinguished looking man, and the Empress.

"Houki-sama," said Taka, instantly, reaching to take her hands in a way that was rather familiar.

But the Empress did not seem bothered. She took his hands too and would have, Reishun thought, embraced him if not for her propriety. "I'm so sorry, Taka," she said, and the tears were streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry."

She spent several quiet moments with him, and then headed to Chichiri's side, pressing her palm to his head. "He looks..." She paused, swallowing. Reishun had to imagine the man had looked... well, fuller than he did now. He did not seem to be in pain or suffering, only completely depleted; as though rest was his body's way of insisting he get better. Houki turned, her face more stoic now. "What happened?" she asked, speaking to Taka.

Taka spoke. He relayed his story from when he had landed in the Universe of the Four Gods and met Tasuki, to how they had travelled to Sairou to seek Subaru and Tokaki's help to rescue Chichiri. Reishun was very aware of Amefuri next to her, extremely tense, as he explained their first futile attempt to breach the fortress, and how Tokaki had died. Reishun noted, quietly, that it had started drizzling by the time he finished this part of his story. He moved on to the attack on Subaru, the lost letters - at which Houki had to press a hand to her mouth - and how Jungney, who had turned out to be the Byakko Seishi Kagasuki, had tricked them.

"What?!" Amefuri demanded at this conjuncture, looking completely alarmed. "Wha- how? There are only two of us-"

Taka stopped, staring at her with almost open mistrust. "Two of you?"

"Taka," Houki said, stepping in before Amefuri could respond aggressively (which, Reishun knew, she most certainly would have). "Amefuri-san is here at Subaru's request. She had performed duties for both of us... Subaru and myself, at great cost. I will have you know that I trust her, implicitly. As I trust you."

It was a tense moment - the thunder growling aggressively - but Taka, after a moment, nodded and continued his story. "Well, Kagasuki took Subaru by surprise as well. He had Chichiri fooled - and took a memory from his mind, the memory of how to get to Taikyoku-"

The thunder made a noise again, and Reishun turned to Amefuri, who looked very much as though she wanted to say something at this moment. But she did not speak and Taka pressed on, explaining how they had found Miaka and Hikari, their confrontation of the Black Dragon and his many servants, and how Miaka had sacrificed herself.

Though Houki was crying very silently by now, she asked Reishun and Amefuri to tell their story as well, and they did, uninterrupted until the very end where Houki met Reishun's gaze with complete confusion. "Eian did not come to me," she said, sincerely - so sincerely that just like the last time Reishun had met her, she found herself unable to loathe her for having a spot in Eian's heart that she herself did not. "I don't understand. Where would he have gone?"

"I don't know," said Reishun, somewhat sullenty, forgetting her manners. Houki did not seem bothered, but she felt a twinge of guilt and a burst of resentment at it.

It was Amefuri who broke the silence that fell a few moments later, though she was sounded reluctant. "He has the Shinzaho," she said, slowly. "You can use the Shinzaho to find other Shinzaho."

"Are you saying- maybe he's gone after Hikari?" Taka asked, once more with the kind of hope that Reishun feared was brittle.

"I think it's very possible," Amefuri said, surprising Reishun somewhat with the conviction in her voice. "He was closer to Eiyou than we were, he may have felt her leave." She shrugged a little as she said this, as if it was just logic and damn it, Eian had not done anything heroic. But this did not stop Houki and Taka from looking hopeful, and the old man, who Houki had introduced as the former Prime Minister, almost looked pleased. Amefuri looked even more reluctant as she spoke now, "And she probably has Nyan Nyan with her."

"That is very hopeful," said Houki, nodding seriously. Reishun felt another stab of resentment. It was not hopeful, she decided, feeling grumpy. If Amefuri was saying it, it was very unlikely to be hopeful so much as a coldly logical conclusion derived from a set of set facts.

"My friends," Houki said presently, "it's time that I explain what I must ask of you. I have already asked too much... too much has been lost. Miaka... and also... also Rokou. Chou Rokou," she added, looking at Reishun, who did not immediatelt absorb the weight of this. Now, Houki explained - everything from Subaru and her correspondence, Amefuri who relayed the messages, Eian's departure with the Shinzaho, Miaka's arrival... their work to gather supporters of the old gods, and Rokou's tragic execution - Reishun found herself growing steadily more sorrowful. By the end of this, she was fighting back tears, without being able to speak of how or why.

"And I must ask more of you," Houki was saying, though Reishun only half-listened to her. It was very much like a large ball of sorrow bursting against her chest, as though it would rip her open and devour her. "More of all of you than I have the right to - but I will not ask you to do something you do not wish to. Amefuri," she said, and though the woman flinched at the use of her Seishi name, she sat up, looking at the Empress, "if you are able ... and maybe Reishun too... I must ask you to return to your old mission. Maybe there isn't hope - but we need to try to find the last copy of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho - even if it lies... beyond our lands. Reishun-"

"I will go with her," said Reishun, looking up at the Empress, a little too harshly. Then, she cleared her throat and spoke more appropriately. "Sorry... I mean, I'm sorry, your Highness, I will accompany her."

"Alright," Houki accepted with a small smile, and then turned to Taka. "Taka, if you want to go after your daughter I will not stop you. We need to find the others - the other Seishi, but we can send someone else, if you want to go after her."

Taka took a deep breath and looked from Houki to Chichiri, still sleeping on the bed. It was undoubtedly a huge struggle for him, so much was clear. Reishun almost wanted to yell at him and tell him not to be stupid, of course he needed to go after his daughter - even while a part of her was completely sure that Eian would take care of her. But that was not logic, that was instinct, and she battled with it as much as Taka seemed to battle with it. "I will look for the others," he said, and his voice shook. "I don't have the first idea where she may have gone."

"He'll find her," said Houki, reaching again to touch his hand briefly.

It was uncharacteristic of an Empress, but Reishun could see that they knew each other, as old friends might and in that moment, Taka seemed to need human contact. For some reason, Houki's sensitivity and empathy brought tears to her eyes, and she had to turn her face away. So much had happened in this one day that she felt as though she was carrying the weight of the world with her - the weight of her departed friend and her brother, the worry for Hikari and Eian and Nyan Nyan. It was a heavy burden. But, she reminded herself that even though sometimes it was difficult, she was pretty damned good at carrying heavy things. Maybe that was the point of the phoenix's sorrow... maybe he did not die in flame but grew through the pain that came inevitably when one lived and loved and was human.

Later, as they prepared to depart, Reishun told Amefuri she'd left something in the house and darted back. She found the prayer room without quite knowing how. Though it hurt, and though she had to draw to shutters so the light did not reach the outside and alert the soldiers, and though she faltered often, she lit two small candles. She stood back and regarded them with feelings she could not quite name. For a moment she considered saying something, but there were no words, really, for saying goodbye to friends you had already lost.

She left the two flames burning as she left to find Amefuri.

* * *

**Author's Ramblings:** This chapter is dedicated to a special someone whose birthday it is today! And also I have edited it, finally. So:

1. SORRY for anyone who was shipping Eian/Reishun. I never bought into Nuriko/Hotohori pairings, but that was quite painful to write. Is it really goodbye for a very long time? I guess we'll find out!  
2. Also, this is probably a lesson in why one should not attempt to "protect" children from the serious consequences of their actions. Had Reishun told Hikari about the village with the pigpen-man (Oda) and his grandmother, perhaps Hikari would have been better prepared for the awful reality of her mission. This is a bit reminiscent also of Miaka's realisation and subsequent crazy running away, yes, though also significantly different in that Hikari has Nyan Nyan (I love Nyan Nyan. I am dying to give her more screentime than "Kowaiineesaaaaaaaaaaaan!" and sobbing, though I don't think there's any getting away from that). And also some other stuff.  
3. Also, why is Eian able to follow her while, say, Taka or Reishun are utterly unaware? Is because Eian is not following Hikari. He is being led by the Shinzaho to the other Shinzaho. Easy peasy.  
4. Black Dragon may think the game is over, but it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo not. Also he's kind of growing on me, with his booming and his "I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING BAHAHAHAHAHA" logic (a lot more fun to write than Xiang, who is, admittedly, a lot more interesting). And he talks a LOT. I love him.

Also, I don't know what's happening, but there's a bunch of people who seem to have read Chapter 30, but just one brave soldier who has read Chapter 29. GUYS THAT WAS A DOUBLE UPDATE. Chapter 30 may not make too much sense without 29! JUST SAYING.


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